"The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage."
-- Psalm 16:6
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Today we are blessed of God to gather as His people at a point in the life of this portion of Christ's church that is joyous, historic, and defining. It is a joyous moment, because we join in celebrating one hundred twenty-five years of God's goodness and grace in the life, witness, work and service of the Reformed Episcopal Church. It is an historic moment because we gather in assembly, for the first time in memory, as an international body of Reformed Episcopalians, coming together from the United Kingdom, France, Germany, India, Liberia, Canada, and the United States, to join in a time of worship, fellowship, deliberation and celebration that may encourage, stimulate, and inspire us all in our common commitment of faith and endeavor. It is a defining moment because we are here to assess the effectiveness of our current ministries; to implement better means of fulfilling our present opportunities; and to articulate a vision and establish strategies that will enable us to enter into that future which the Lord has before us with renewed purpose, vitality, fruitfulness, and resolve. It is truly a joyous, historic, defining moment in the life of the Reformed Episcopal Church.
It is, therefore, an appropriate time to begin by giving thought to our heritage. You cannot be godly without being thankful. The Apostle Paul, in writing to the church at Rome, characterized the pagan world of unbelief as a people who "...did not glorify God, neither were thankful." (Romans 1:21) To do the one requires the other: to glorify God demands that we offer him grateful hearts for His amazing grace. "The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage."
The idea of "heritage" and "inheritance" is prominent in Holy Scripture-in fact, it is central to the most vital realities of our relationship with God and of our faith. The covenant promise of God, articulated in Eden, and reiterated to Noah, to Abraham, to Moses, to David, and fulfilled in Christ Himself-that covenant promise is the promise of an inheritance. If you ask who the people of God are, they are repeatedly referred to in Scripture as the "heirs of the promise". (Galatians 3:29) It is our unsurpassed privilege to be designated "...heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ." (Romans 8:17) Indeed, the whole of our glorious salvation-the salvation of which the prophets spoke-the salvation which is now being revealed-the salvation which is coming to glorious consummation-the whole of that priceless salvation is described as an inheritance-an inheritance that is "incorruptible, undefiled, [and that] fadeth not away...." (I St- Peter 1:4) I am certain that God speaks so often of "heritage" and "inheritance" in relation to all the blessings and benefits that we share as His people through Christ Jesus for one particular reason. "Heritage" focuses our attention on "grace". An inheritance is bestowed, it is not earned. To be designated an heir of God and a fellow-heir with Christ, prompts each of us to face the question asked by St. Paul, "What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?" (I Corinthians 4:7) As the people of God, as a portion of the body of Christ, and as Reformed Episcopalians, we cannot-we dare not celebrate and rejoice without glorifying God as God, and giving thanks for the amazing grace bestowed upon us as an heritage of the Lord. "The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage."
When Bishop George David Cummins stepped forward to organize the Reformed Episcopal Church on December 2, 1873, he did so by claiming an heritage. And his memorable words define what must be the focus of our own claim and celebration today. Here is what Cummins said in his sermon to the First General Council of the church:
"We have not met to destroy, but to restore.... One in heart, in spirit, and in faith with our fathers...we return to their position...and through these, our ancestors, we claim an unbroken historical connection through the Church of England with the Church of Christ, from the earliest Christian era."
The heritage which Cummins claimed for the Reformed Episcopal Church was not merely the legacy of his immediate forbearers; much less was it to be an inheritance of his own creation, a legacy to be built by those who stood with him in the organization of this branch of the church. The heritage which Cummins claimed was not merely that of the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries-nor of the sixteenth century-but of the first century. Yes, it was the heritage of the Church of England; and that, as we well know, is an heritage traceable in its origins to the immediate post-apostolic age. But even more broadly than that, the heritage claimed by Bishop Cummins for the branch of the church which he called to organize was the heritage of "the Church of Christ from the earliest Christian era". To put it as I think it must be put, it is the heritage of Christ's one, holy, catholic and apostolic church.
It is vital that we comprehend that, lest what ought to be, for us, an appropriate thankfulness for heritage, degenerate instead into an illegitimate celebration of sectarianism. Important as the events of December 2, 1873 remain for us as Reformed Episcopalians, it is well that we remember that Pentecost occurred more than eighteen hundred years earlier than that. The heritage which we claim and celebrate extends far beyond events and their outcomes which were shaped by men and movements of the nineteenth century. Bishop Cummins tightly rooted our heritage where it truly belongs, and must always remain, in the apostolic era. It was he who identified
"The Reformed Episcopal Church, [as] holding 'the faith once delivered unto the saints'..."
One wonders whether or not there was, resonating in Cummins' mind, the definition of Anglican Christianity articulated by Bishop Lancelot Andrews more than two hundred years earlier.
"One canon reduced to writing by God Himself, two testaments, three creeds, four general councils, five centuries, and the series of Fathers in that period-the centuries that is, before Constantine, and two after- [these] determine the boundary of our faith."
Whether Cummins had Bishop Andrews' definition in mind I cannot say. What is clear is that when Bishop Cummins sought to lay out boundaries for the Reformed Episcopal Church, he established the perimeters of that ancient heritage in terms of four critical components: the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, which are the revealed Word of God; the ancient creedal formulation of the apostolic faith, which provides a sufficient summary of the essentials of Christian belief; the Gospel Sacraments of Holy Baptism and Holy Eucharist, administered as they were ordained by Christ Himself; and the historic episcopate, as that ancient and desirable form according to which the church is to be overseen and ordered. Holy Scripture and Apostolic Creed; Holy Sacraments and historic Episcopal order. These essential pillars of our heritage were, interestingly enough, by no means unique to George David Cummins. They were, indeed, put forward by him as the structural beams of the platform upon which the Reformed Episcopal Church was to be built. They are four crucial aspects of what he himself titled our "Declaration of Principles". But the same essential boundary lines, defining the same fundamental perimeters, were also proposed by William Reed Huntingdon to the Episcopal General Convention of 1886, and adopted by that communion. And the Lambeth Conference, of 1888 received their recommendation and approved the same definition of boundaries as a general statement for the entire Anglican Communion. Our heritage as a Christian Church in the Anglican tradition rests on these foundational pillars. The true heritage of our church is apostolic. The church is "...built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the chief cornerstone." (Ephesians 2:20) Our heritage is that of "the Church of Christ from the earliest Christian era."
"One canon, reduced to writing by God Himself, [in] two testaments". Bishop Andrews started there. Bishop Cummins began in the same place, with the Reformed Episcopal Church, holding "...the faith once delivered unto the saints", and declaring "its belief in the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the Word of God..." Today the world in general, and Christendom in particular, are beleaguered by a crisis of authority. In the midst of that very crisis, we gather together to thank God for the heritage claimed for us by Bishop Cummins; the heritage bequeathed to us by classical Anglicanism throughout the centuries; the heritage of historic Christianity since the earliest era-the unshakable conviction that the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the revealed Word of God; and the unswerving commitment to those Scriptures as the ultimate authority for both the faith and the practice of the church. And this is the commitment which God, by His amazing grace, has enabled us to maintain throughout one hundred twenty-five years as a church: that the authority of Holy Scripture is unique, absolute, determinative, ultimate, and final. In the words of the Articles of Religion: "Whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man that it should be believed as an article of the faith...."
Those Articles of Religion, bequeathed to us by the English Reformers, and affirmed by Bishop Cummins as embodying the substance of the doctrines of grace-those Thirty-nine Articles of Religion are also an integral component of our heritage as a church-because they distill, summarize, and put forward the biblical faith.
Throughout the Thirty-nine Articles, points of doctrine are established on the basis of references to Holy Scripture, and are many times set forward almost exclusively in the precise words of the Bible itself. There are certain beliefs and practices condemned in the Articles precisely because they are said to be contrary to the teaching of Holy Scripture. Questions of church order, authority, tradition and practice are made subservient to the authority of the Bible, and are defined, tested by, and subordinated to scriptural teaching. It is the uniform position of the Articles of Religion that Holy Scripture is the foundational, indispensable unique and absolute authority for the church's faith and practice, and that there is no other coordinate authority. That there are other subordinate authorities is freely acknowledged. For example, the creeds are authorities, precisely because they may be proved "....by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture." And the church is said to have authority in controversies of faith, so long as she does not "...ordain anything that is contrary to God's Word written"; and provided she does not interpret any one' passage of Scripture so that it contradicts any other. Throughout the turbulent years at the end of the nineteenth century, and continuing through the increasingly troubled decades of this twentieth century, God by His grace has kept the Reformed Episcopal Church faithful to these tenets of our heritage. Not merely faithful in safeguarding them in the archives of our denominational past, as though they were relics of an age gone by. But safeguarding them as living realities which continue to shape, determine and direct the work, witness, and ministry of this portion of Christ's church. From the point of view of human frailty and weakness, there is every reason why this church, like so many others, should have abandoned this commitment, relegating these precepts to the realm of antiquated curiosities. The fact that what we claim as our heritage we still own as our life is attributable to nothing other than God's amazing grace. And we join in chorus with the words of the Psalmist: "The boundary lines are fallen to me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage."
Christian faith is lived out as the Gospel is ministered in Word and sacrament, and as the people of God are formed and shaped by that ministry to become more and more a habitation of God by His Spirit. The formative instrument of that ongoing spiritual process, as far as our communion is concerned, is the Book of Common Prayer. More than merely the means for our corporate worship, the Book of Common Prayer is, for churches in our Anglican tradition, the agency through which God nurtures both individual and corporate spirituality. That liturgy is a legacy bequeathed to us through centuries of Christian piety and devotion, compiled and published under the direction and care of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer and those who assisted him in the sixteenth century; and brought to full fruition as the work of liturgical reform and refinement reached its culmination in the Prayer Book of 1662. Cranmer's genius as a reforming bishop and liturgical scholar was to provide for his church a liturgy which is biblically faithful; which maintains continuity with the practice of historic Christianity; which unifies the church; and which edifies the people. As a result, we are heir to a rich liturgical heritage which we must be diligent and zealous to maintain with full integrity. After all, worship is both an articulation of what the church believes, and a teaching experience through which faith and spirituality are constantly shaped, nurtured, and brought to increasing maturity. There is a profound mutuality between what the church believes and what she prays. Liturgy simultaneously expresses faith and nurtures faith. The law of prayer is the law of belief. Led orandi lex credendi. We are the people whom we are today, bearing the identity which is ours, celebrating the heritage we hold dear, because down through the decades of our history we have been shaped and molded by the spirituality of the Prayer Book as we have taken that book in hand as the instrument of our common worship. It is Prayer Book spirituality that has kept the Reformed Episcopal Church on course when many a contrary wind would have blown it in some alien direction, or sent it foundering on some rocky shoal. It is that liturgical legacy-our heritage from the English reformers-although tinkered with at times in our past, but nonetheless maintained fundamentally intact, and now in process of full restoration-it is that liturgical legacy, coupled with the Holy Scriptures, the historic creeds, the Holy Sacraments, and the historic episcopate, which define our identity, Together with the Holy Scriptures themselves, that Prayer Book liturgy has provided the internal gyroscope which has kept our ecclesiastical ship upright and on course; it has nourished our life; it has molded our faith. It is a bestowment of God's amazing grace-a vital component of our glorious heritage. It is one of the principal reasons that we say with the Psalmist, "The lines are fallen to me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage."
It is purposeful that I have had you think with me about our heritage largely in terms of the objective standards which frame and fashion our life as a church: Scripture, creeds, sacraments, and liturgy. These are the substantive realities which, as our inheritance from the past, constitute the legacy of God's amazing grace to us as His people today. But having said all that, I would not have you think that I am unaware that God mediates His grace through persons. And when we reflect upon "heritage", it is not merely forms and structures, standards and precepts that we see, but faces and names which come to mind. That is always true. When God presents Himself to us as the God of heritage and inheritance, He accompanies that witness with names. He identifies Himself as "the God of Abraham of Isaac, and of Jacob". He is the God of our fathers-and our fathers have names. Our forefathers have names: and, indeed, we have spoken some of them: Cranmer and Cummins, Andrews, and others. But the point we need to see is that while heritage and grace are mediated through persons, the true legacy bequeathed is larger than any one of them, and indeed, far greater than them all. And that legacy cannot, and dare not, strictly be identified with any of them. For all of our fathers and forebearers also were heirs, and had nothing to leave us but what they had received. And whatever they have passed on to us which is of enduring value and of timeless worth is not of themselves, but of God.
There can be great danger in associating heritage too much with the personalities that mediate it to us. The principal pitfalls are what I will call "pride of pedigree" and "petty partisanship". The religious contemporaries of our Lord fell victim to the "pride-of-pedigree" syndrome, boastfully claiming their lineage from Abraham as a basis for status, privilege, and prestige. And our Lord denounced them' for it.
"Do not think you can say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham to our father'. I tell you that out of these stones, God can raise up children to Abraham. The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire." (St. Matthew 3:9-10)
If we are not careful, the celebration of our heritage can easily become a kind of Pharisaical thanksgiving: "I thank Thee, Lord God, that I am not as other men are." To claim Cranmer and Latimer, Ridley and Jewel, Hooker and Parker, Cummins and Cheney as our spiritual fathers cannot be to indulge our pride, but to acknowledge our debt. And to make us keenly aware that "to whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be required." A genuine celebration of heritage leads to renewed dedication to faithfulness and fruitfulness.
We also need to guard against the kind of selective celebration of heritage which all too readily degenerates into petty partisanship. In the apostolic age, the church at Corinth had had a succession of eminent worthies to minister among them. Each left his imprint; each bequeathed his legacy. The problem came when the people of the church wanted to divide into opposing camps of party loyalists and claim the distinctive contributions of this man or that as the true essence of their heritage: "I am of Paul!" "I follow Apollos!" "I am of Cephas!" "I follow Christ!" And St. Paul castigates their partisan wrangling as juvenile, fleshly, unwholesome, and counterproductive to the cause of Christ and the Gospel. The legacy of ministry in the name of Christ dare not be so closely identified with the personality of the individual leader that devotion to his legacy becomes cultic.
Within the fixed boundaries that define our Anglican and Reformed Episcopal heritage-the catholic faith maintained with evangelical conviction-within that framework there has always been great latitude for divergence both of understanding and practice. It has been so from the beginning. Just as the apostolic church had Paul, Apollos, and Cephas; so the Reformation in England had Cranmer, Ridley and Hooper; classical Anglicanism includes Richard Hooker, Jeremy Taylor, Lancelot Andrews, and J. C. Ryle; Reformed Episcopal history gives us George David Cummins, Charles Edward Cheney, Samuel Fallows, and Robert Livingston Rudolph-together with a host of others. Each has ministered the grace of Christ to His church. Each has participated in passing a rich legacy on to us. We ought to be sincerely thankful for them all, and draw from their contribution all that can nourish and nurture us for the fulfillment of our opportunity. But we need constantly to guard against dishonoring our heritage and despising our forbearers by selectively identifying with some, as though they are somehow uniquely authentic and worthy, and denigrating others as though their legacy is to be repudiated. We do no honor to our Reformed Episcopal past if we take its roster of names as a menu from which to select figureheads for partisan alignment: "I am of Cummins!" "I am of Hoffman!" "I am of Culbertson!" And what can be the most supercilious and arrogant claim of them all, "Well, I am of Christ!"
The heritage which we have received at the hands of all these servants of the past is, indeed, the heritage of Christ-the heritage of the grace of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. It is a heritage attested in the revealed and authoritative Word of Holy Scripture; articulated in the historic creeds; ministered through the preaching of the Word and the administration of the Holy Sacraments; safeguarded, transmitted, and proclaimed under the oversight of those called and consecrated to the historic episcopate; nurtured and lived out in the Body of Christ through the liturgy of the Book of Common Prayer. "The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage."
Let the joy of the Lord be among us as we celebrate the greatness of our heritage at this Council-and let our joy be full! But let out celebration of God's amazing grace to us as His people also move us, as indeed it must, to humility and to rededication, Let our remembrance of heritage be offered in the spirit of the General Thanksgiving with which we conclude every reading of the Daily Office:
"And, we beseech thee, give us that due sense of all thy mercies, that our hearts may be unfeignedly thankful; And that we show forth thy praise, not only with our lips, but in our lives; By giving up ourselves to thy service, and by walking before thee in holiness and righteousness all our days."
"The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage."
--Amen.
"Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that worketh in us; unto him be glory in the Church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen"
† The Rt. Rev. Leonard W. Riches, D.D. Presiding Bishop