The Challenge of the Church: Rowan Williams preaches at the opening Eucharist of the Anglican Consultative Council

Opening Eucharist of the Anglican Consultative Council.

You may hear the remarkable Eucharist sermon by Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, at the opening of the Anglican Consultative Council in Auchland, New Zealand here.  The church keeps slipping back and not praying hard when it doesn't see the sharp challenge of the church.  Rowan Williams preaches from his heart, as one who has faced the challenge himself over the past ten years of his ministry.

Here is the scripture:

¹⁷ This is my command: Love each other.  

¹⁸ “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. ¹⁹ If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. ²⁰ Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’^[a] If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also.If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. ²¹ They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me. ²² If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. ²³ Whoever hates me hates my Father as well. ²⁴ If I had not done among them the works no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. As it is, they have seen, and yet they have hated both me and my Father. ²⁵ But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: ‘They hated me without reason.’

²⁶ “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truthwho goes out from the Father—he will testify about me. ²⁷ And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.