Archbishop Cherry's Sermon: Back in the mid 1990’s, I’m not sure exactly when, I came across a poem that has stuck with me ever since. I don’t know how or why it came my way but it has shaped my understanding of ministry and of the church down the years and it seems rather fitting to reflect on it with you on an occasion such as this. Its title is ‘In search of a round table’ and its author, someone called Chuck Laythrop. Here are some parts of it:Concerning the why and how and what and who of ministry, one image keeps surfacing: A table that is round. It will take some sawing to be roundtabled. Some redefining and redesigning, some redoing and rebirthing of narrow-long Churching can painful be, for people and tables. It would mean no daising and throning, for but one king is there and he is a foot washer, at table no less. And what of narrow-long ministers when they confront a round table people, After years of working up the table to finally sit at its headOnly to discover that the table has been turned around? They must be loved into roundness, For God has called a People, not ‘them and us’. ‘Them and us’ are unable to gather round; for at a round table there are no sides and ALL are invited to wholeness and to food..Roundtabling means no preferred seating, no first and last, no better, And no corners for the ‘least of these.’Roundtabling means being with, a part of, together and one. It means room for the Spirit and gifts and disturbing profound peace for all.What would it take for us to become a round tabled church? What might we be better able to share with the world and be for the world if we were truly a People, and not ‘them and us’?We live in troubling times. Division and hate, mistrust and disinformation are rife across our world and in our societies here in Wales. There seems to be an increasing tendency, an encouragement even (from some at least) to define ourselves over and against others in ways that significantly threaten the community cohesion that many have spent decades trying to build. Many are frightened as wars and tensions across the world play out in our streets and our communities. It’s hard sometimes to know what to say without the fear of offending someone or some group of people. Whilst at the same time, the need to defend the right to freedom of speech has rarely been more urgent. Climate change is already destroying livelihoods and homes. Continuing increases in the cost of living are rendering many fearful and anxious for the future. Whilst the church cannot solve the world’s problems, we can and are called to model a very different way of going on, which holds out another way of being and the hope that is the Kingdom of God. The poem about roundtabling reflects some key themes in the gospel, the good news of Jesus, that we’re called to proclaim with all that we have and all that we are.And so, in our attitudes and behaviours, in the decisions we take and the values we espouse, in the way we live and relate to one another, there is to be no ‘them and us’. For all are created by God and made in God’s very image and that is our starting point. Hard though it may be sometimes, we are invited by God to celebrate the diversity of our global humanity and to embrace it as a gift. In God’s economy, all are invited and all are welcome as children of the same heavenly father. We are one in him. There is to be ‘no daising and throning’ – rather ironic in the context of what is happening here this afternoon, with a rather large throne sitting centre-stage. But the gospel reminds us, as does the poem, that we are all equal in God’s sight. God is not in the business of hierarchies. Indeed, Jesus in many of his parables and sayings turns upside-down our natural tendencies to think in terms of greatest and best, highest and most important. Rather, he warns us that the first shall be last and the last shall be first. We are to see others as God sees them, and ourselves likewise.And we are to take our queue from Christ our King, who is a foot-washer at table, no less. For this is the example he sets for us to follow, as we heard a moment ago in our gospel reading. But this is about more than simply serving those in our own tribe or church or the people who are like us. In another passage, Jesus tells us that when we feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, visit for the sick and those who are in prison, when we care for those who are considered to be ‘the least of these’, then we are doing it for him. This is what love looks like in its basic and most practical terms. It all sounds very good and noble and it’s all very familiar to those of us who claim to follow Jesus. But, if we take it seriously and seek to live it out, then we soon discover that it’s hard work, and it doesn’t come easily. For it means reaching out across the divides and risking being rejected and ridiculed for our efforts. It means staying with and being alongside those who push our buttons and infuriate us beyond measure with grace and charity and an open heart. It means being prepared to let go of our own power and ability to control in order to empower and enable others, to be challenged and changed by those who come, whether to our church or to our country, and to seek that of Christ even in those who repulse us, revile us and threaten our comfortable lives.Isaiah was only able to say those well-loved words, ‘here am I, send me’ because he’d captured a vision of the glory of the Lord, he’d recognised his own unworthiness and he’d experienced the forgiveness and grace of God. Then and only then was he moved and stirred to offer himself for service. And the verses following our passage today spell out what an incredibly challenging task he was given. St Paul compares the weakness and fragility of his and our human nature with clay jars; worn, pitted and cracked by the demands, hurts and disappointments of life. He reminds his readers not to confuse the treasure of the gospel and its power to transform with our own human ability and strength that are so limited and so easily broken. Our focus and attention must be on the good news we carry within us and the power of God that can and has changed us. For that is what the world so desperately needs and that is what we’re called to proclaim; not ourselves.And in Jesus’s example of loving service we see the very heart of God which is encapsulated in the image of a round table to which all are invited, all are welcome and at which, all are fed. A different way of living. A different way of being, which we’re invited not just to enjoy and keep for ourselves within the church, but to share with the world and be for the world. May God give us grace to love one another into roundness, in the church and in the world, that we may increasingly discover what it means to ‘be with, to be a part of, together and one.’