Some of you will perhaps have watched the recent installation of Sarah Mullally as the new Archbishop of Canterbury. Or, to use her full title, the Most Reverend and Right Honourable Dame Sarah Mullally, Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, and 106th Archbishop of Canterbury.
I was amused at the time of her installation when one journalist said she was the first woman Archbishop in 1400 years, as if before that there had been other women archbishops. Another journalist didn’t mention her by name, but mentioned the name of her husband, as if if it was enough to describe her as a wife and a woman.
In fact, the new Archbishop is supremely accomplished. Before she was ordained in 2001, she was the government’s Chief Nursing Officer for England, and she was the first woman to be the Bishop of London, in which role she was quite successful. But, on March 25th, during her installation service, none of this mattered.
At the start of the service, when she performed the ritual knocking on the outside door of the cathedral with her crozier, she was received by a group of schoolchildren. The ceremony began with them asking
“Who are you and why do you request entry?”
The Archbishop says
“I am Sarah, a servant of Jesus Christ, and I come as one seeking the grace of God, to travel with you in his service together.
The Children say
“Why have you been sent to us?”
The Archbishop says “I am sent as Archbishop to serve you, to proclaim the love of Christ and with you to worship and love him with heart and soul, mind and strength.”
The Children say “How do you come among us and with what confidence?”
The Archbishop says “I come knowing nothing except Jesus Christ and him crucified, and in weakness and fear and in much trembling.”
Our own Bishop Andrew, who was there, said recently that there was no mention of her resume or of her earthly knowledge or achievements. In that moment, what mattered was that she was Sarah, a servant of Christ and of his church, and all that she needs to know and profess is Jesus Christ and him crucified.
Those words are the same words that Paul used when he presents his credentials to the church in Corinth. In his first letter to that church, Paul writes that “I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified”. For Paul the message of the cross was all that mattered. In a world which worshipped power and wisdom, the message of the cross spoke of abundant love poured out for all. Likewise the work of the Spirit, the gift to all who keep the cross in their hearts, is a gift which gives us access to what Paul calls “the mind of Christ”, the infinite reservoir of love and humility which allowed the lord of the starfields to become the servant of our sinful humanity.
My friends, today we come to see and to cherish Jesus Christ and him crucified. We come to the cross at a time when so many in our world are attracted to visions of arrogance, power, and cruelty. We come to the cross amidst calls for detentions, deportations, deprivations of status and citizenship.
We come to the cross to see the powers and lies of the world exposed as the vain and threadbare things they are. Where some would worship golden statues and surging markets and planet-eating technology, we come to a God who breaks them by means of the offering of his broken body, given for all humanity.
The man on the cross, that rejected messiah, that beaten prisoner, that suffering servant, takes the powers of the world and exposes them as the dead and deadly things they are, and in doing so, he ushers in a second creation, one of freedom, love, and dignity for all the beloved children of God.
Beloved, this place we have to come to may be as bleak as its name, Golgotha, the place of the Skull, but it is the cradle of a new world. Today we learn all that we need to know, Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
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