The Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe

October 16, 2022  •  The Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Christ Church, Clermont-Ferrand

Text: Genesis 32:26: “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

A little less than a year ago, after the last annual Convention of the Convocation, a small group was commissioned by the Council of Advice to ask a pretty basic question: Why do we hold Convention? What are the things we have to do, and what are the things we might do?

There are some pretty obvious answers to that question. If there is anything special, anything distinctive, about our church, the Episcopal Church, it is the way we try to govern ourselves. We have a Convention; we don’t have a Synod. We don’t have a bishop who can single-handedly veto a decision made by the people. (There is a story about how we think about bishops in this church, and why it is different from pretty much every other church in the Anglican Communion, which I’ll tell you sometime if you’re interested.)

So we have a Convention because there are things we must do. We must elect new leaders. We must pass a budget. We must approve the auditor’s report of our finances. We must do all of this not just because it’s legally required, but because the way we govern ourselves is an important part of how we express what we believe. 

What I mean by that is this. We say in our baptismal covenant that all people have equal dignity and worth before God. We think a lot about how that commitment should shape how a church made up of those people; how a church that claims to honor the dignity of all people should be organized. And where we end up is, we think the church should be governed by all its people, sharing in responsibility for how we govern ourselves.

Well, we sat with those questions. And what we decided was, yes, we need to spend part of our time together doing what we must do. But if we are going to gather all those people from across Europe, we really ought to spend part of our time praying, and thinking, and teaching about something God has set before us to do—something God is calling us to do. 

Now, as you all know, Moses brought two documents down from Mount Sinai. Most people know about one of them. That one, of course, is the Ten Commandments. But the second is the list with the order in which the congregations of the Convocation host the annual convention. And wouldn’t you just know, by that holy ordinance it falls to Christ Church in Clermont-Ferrand to host this year’s convention.

So after all this planning and praying, the task of hosting the biggest, grandest, most complicated Convention we have ever dared to host in the history of the Convocation falls on the smallest, pluckiest, most determined congregation we have. You. Us.

Here ends the preamble to the sermon. Now let me turn to the readings we have heard, and try to make out the case that our loving God had a reason for us to hear just these lessons today.

There are two pretty dramatic and seemingly disconnected stories set before us today. The first is the story of Jacob and his wrestling match with the angel. It’s a story that teaches us something about the character of Jacob, as so many stories do: he is a combination of wily, and prayerful, and calculating, and very, very determined. 

Only someone determined to know God would grapple all night with a man who seems to be a person who knows God—a person who is close to God. Jacob is a competitor, yes; he is not one to turn away from a struggle. 

But he is struggling for a reason. There is something he wants to know. There is a call he senses, a call to know God more fully, walk with God more faithfully, know God more intimately. Something tells him beyond any doubt that this struggle he is contending with is just that struggle. And so he will not relent, he will not give up, he will not walk away.

Hold that in view and then think about the parable Jesus taught us this morning. We know that seems to be about one thing, and is really about something else. 

It seems to be about a widow who has suffered an injustice. When Jesus tells us this story, he means for us to understand that this woman has lost pretty much everything she had in her society; not just her husband, but her status in society, her family, her security.

It seems to be about the judge hearing her case, who is a uniquely Scrooge-like character. 

But what it’s really about is her persistence—her unyielding, unswerving determination. She has a cause, and it is a righteous cause; and she will not let it rest. She will not take no for an answer, she will not abandon her case; she persists.

It cannot be an accident that just on the threshold of a great task that has been handed to us to do, just as we run down the last two weeks before taking on what sometimes feels like an impossibly big job, we have been given this message to hold in our hearts today: When God calls us to a task, when God invites us to participate in his mission and his work, we are meant to keep pushing forward. We are meant to keep grappling, keep knocking, keep searching, keep asking. 

You can see it from the other end of the problem as well. When we get that sense of determination deep within our bones, when there is a cause or a hope or a dream that we just will not let go of, there is a good chance we are meant to understand that there is something about God’s call to us mixed up in it somewhere.

We have a lot to do between now and the thirtieth of October, when the Convention will end. We will wonder sometimes how on earth we will be able to do it. Believe me when I tell you, there have been more than a few sleepless hours lately in these past weeks when I have wondered why I ever aimed so high with what I believed we could do, what we could offer to our people, in our annual gathering.

But, well—it’s not just up to me. It’s not even just up to us. If we will but avail ourselves of it, we have all the help we need. “I lift my eyes to the hills / from where is my help to come? My help comes from the Lord, / the maker of heaven and earth.” 

If what we are grappling with is God’s call to us, if our cause is God’s hope for God’s people, then we will be given the strength we need to persist. We will wear down the obstacles that stand in our way. And not even angels will prevail against us. Amen.