T IS VERY GOOD to be with you again once more to celebrate the annual Chrism Mass. As usual, I want to divide my Chrism Mass homily into two: a bit of theology and then my annual reflection of where we have got to. To help these reflections, some words from the Collect for the Chrism Mass:

'Help us to be faithful witnesses in the world to the salvation Christ won for all mankind.'

The Chrism Mass is the one Mass of the year which is heavily focused on the clergy. We are tremendously grateful of the support of the whole People of God - glad that you have all turned out to offer us prayer and support, as you invariably do - but this occasion is like one of the two bookends of Holy Week and Easter. A bookend, usually 'one of a pair', is 'an ornamental prop used to keep a row of books upright'. In my son's room he has literally a couple of props as bookends - props as in a rugby scrum, front-row forwards, pushing the books together.

Holy Week and Easter have as their bookends, one mainly clerical occasion - the Chrism Mass - and one which is purely and simply about belonging together to the holy People of God - the Easter Mass itself. At the Chrism Mass we are reminded of our commitment as bishops, priests and deacons. This first bookend gives us an opportunity to prepare ourselves to present the great drama of Holy Week and Easter. It's a bookend at which the Holy Oils are blessed and consecrated - oil to exorcise and prepare people for baptism, oil to consecrate and seal the baptised, oil to comfort and heal the sick. These are the tools of the priest, sacramental gifts put at his disposal for the year ahead by this Mass of Chrism. The other bookend is the Easter Mass itself when the holy People of God - all of us together - will renew our baptismal promises and be fed by the Risen Presence of Christ. As ever, he will feed us with himself as we appear in our midst and, of course, because this happens at every Mass, every Mass is a sharing in Easter, just as every Easter is a specially joyful celebration and specially poignant disclosure of God's love, a love which is there with is throughout our lives and made present to us in every Mass. So, two bookends and, in between, we shall be reading again the greatest story ever told and taking part again in the greatest drama ever known.

All of this - the kitting out of the clergy and the sharing in the banquet of the Easter Eucharist - is in order to make us 'faithful witnesses'.

'Help us to be faithful witnesses in the world to the salvation Christ won for all mankind.'

The most important thing that the Jehovah's Witnesses get right - and they get a great deal wrong - is there in their title. They are 'Witnesses'. To be a Christian is to be a witness, a witness 'in the world to the salvation Christ won for all mankind.' To be a witness is to be like Christ himself. As our second reading put it, he is 'Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the first-born of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth'. Jesus Christ 'has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father'. He, the faithful witness, calls us to be faithful witnesses. Jesus announced in the Synagogue in Nazareth that

'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.'

The question is: can we 'witnesses' together learn to be 'faithful witnesses'? Can we 'be faithful witnesses in the world to the salvation Christ won for all mankind'? Can we share in the work of preaching good news to the poor, release of the captives, recovery of sight, liberty for the oppressed? Can we as faithful witnesses, 'proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord'? Can we say to those around us 'Now is the healing time'? Can we, in our lives, show others that 'By his wounds we are healed' and, therefore, 'by his wounds' you too can be healed?

'You are my witnesses', says the Lord, 'and my servant whom I have chosen'. These are words spoken in Isaiah 43 to the Lord's chosen people. 'You shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judaea and Samaria and to the end of the earth', says the Risen Lord to his apostles just before the Ascension (Acts 1). So, a very simple - and blunt - question: can we together engage in the work of mission and evangelism? Can we be witnesses or are we, instead, content to be with those who already belong? If we are witnesses, we shall, as a Christian community. experience change and growth and healing and love. If we are not, we shall belong to an ever-smaller social club, an in-group of people who rub along well enough together but have no energy to look ahead into the future, into God's future. This is a question for clergy and for laity alike, as we renew our ordination promises, as we renew our baptism promises. Are we content to keep things ticking over as they are: 'this will see me out', I sometimes hear the clergy say; 'our church is just the way I like it', I sometimes hear congregations say? Or are we truly to be 'faithful witnesses in the world', with all that entails? The collect for Tuesday in the Fifth Week of Lent in the Divine Office puts it very succinctly - so precisely that I should like to commend this prayer throughout the Ebbsfleet Apostolic District:

May your people, Lord, persevere in obedience to your will so that through this obedience your Church in our time may grow in grace and increase in numbers. Through Christ our Lord.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

And so to part two, the annual 'State of the Union' speech, my equivalent of what the Parish Priest has to say to the Annual Parochial Church Meeting at this time of year. There is an awful lot going on at present and critical decisions are gradually being made. Many of you attended the Forward in Hope day at Westminster Central Hall in January and others of you keep up with things through New Directions and Forward in Faith meetings of one kind or another. I don't want to major on ecclesiastical politics on this occasion and anyway there is nothing much precise that can be said at this point. Let me say briefly where we are.

Since January, we know that the General Synod, by large majorities, has ruled out moving to any simple measure admitting women to the episcopate - that is, without making proper structural provision for those of us who would be unable to accept this step. We know too that, with only one vote against, the General Synod has accepted the suggestion of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the House of Bishops that time be taken to look at canonical, legal and pastoral matters surrounding proper provision for traditionalists. And, highly significantly, the Synod has heard the reminder of the Archbishop of Canterbury that we traditionalists are not guided by theological opinions but by obedience to the mind of the Church as we understand it to have been expressed in Scripture and Tradition. We are very grateful to the Archbishop for this strongly sympathetic remark.

How all this will work out - even in the next few months - is as yet far from clear. The Bishops of Guildford and Gloucester may not be coming up very quickly with any plan - TEA or otherwise - that will solve the problems the Church of England faces. Nor is the women bishop discussion centre stage. A far more interesting debate - from the point of view of the public - and a potentially more damaging one for the Anglican Communion as a whole is the debate about homosexuality: gay bishops and gay marriages, as the headlines go. The 'gay debate' - with Africa on one side and North America on the other - could yet destroy the Anglican Communion and, spreading like a forest fire, even threaten the coherence of the Church of England.

Both debates - women bishops and gay sexuality - are a reminder that, in this culture of choice and human rights - where everyone wants to 'do their own thing' and thinks they have a right to do so , it is harder and harder for the Church to remain united and coherent in its teaching on faith and morals. I suspect that, over time, there will either be some painful realignments - liberals from different denominations with other liberals, conservatives with conservatives - or, perhaps, the Church will invent ways of being more of a loose-knit fellowship and less a Communion. Meanwhile those of us who believe that these should not be church-splitting matters, that traditionalists have a right to be included and that there are conscientiously held differences on ethical matters, must continue to try to hold things together.

There are two more matters that I want to speak about briefly.The first is about Plymouth and the Diocese of Exeter. The Chrism Mass marked the beginning of Bishop John Ford's mandate to care for traditionalists in the Diocese of Exeter. This was signified by a formal hand-over at the end of the Mass: Bishop John gave the Blessing and walked out with the Pastoral Staff. There are a few dioceses which have a suffragan bishop as Diocesan Episcopal Visitor caring for traditionalists but it is a new arrangement for us in the Ebbsfleet scheme of things, where all thirteen dioceses, hitherto, have looked exclusively to the Provincial Episcopal Visitor. So, we are into a new venture and, indeed, one which has been widely called for ever since 1992 and the first talk of flying bishop schemes. Bishop John and I will work together: I remain an Assistant Bishop in the Diocese of Exeter and, with the Guildford Report's talk of Provincial Regional Bishops, and the job description of the Provincial Episcopal Visitor, I continue to have a role and will continue to have a role - not least as a kind of ombudsman and point of reference. It doesn't do to try to define too closely how any of this ought to work. We must simply approach it with a little English pragmatism. I would ask the Exeter parishes, clergy and people to make the new arrangements work and to give Bishop John, who has a real missionary heart, your loyalty, their prayers and your love. Meanwhile there is no change for those from Truro Diocese. Bishop John's mandate stops, as it were, at the Tamar Bridge.

Talking of a missionary heart, I want to end by going back to mission and evangelism. As many of you know, I held a Parish Evangelism Weekend during Lent in Oxford. Some 24 lay leaders in the 25-50 age-group came together and we prayed and learnt and worshipped together. When the women bishop debate looked as though it was going to attack our morale - much as the women priest discussions of the early 1990s did - I decided to launch an Alpha initiative. Broadly speaking, I am inviting - and urging - clergy, parishes and people not to focus in on church politics but - like most of this homily, I hope - to reach out in mission and renewal. This, rather than church politics, is surely the work of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ. This is our real task. Along with the Alpha initiative - already a huge success in some pretty unlikely places - and the idea for central Vigil Masses to attract and cater for newcomers in the 25-50 age-group (not to mention their children), there will be a number of initiatives for mission, evangelism, renewal and growth. It is my firm conviction that if we are faithful to the Gospel, generous in our outreach and prepared to change and grow, all things are possible with God. Our future is God's future and it won't be hammered out in Church House, Westminster, or the Houses of Parliament, it will be hammered out on the anvil of God.

I conclude by urging all of us, as we renew our ministerial promises as deacons, priests and bishops and as we renew our baptismal promises as a kingdom of priests to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. If we do, all the rest will be added to us. Let me use the prayer I mentioned as a final prayer and let us pray it together, with me saying a phrase and you repeating it:

May your people, Lord,
persevere in obedience to your will
so that through this obedience
your Church in our time
may grow in grace and increase in numbers.
Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

And so:

'To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen'

The Bishop of Ebbsfleet
Bishop's House, Dry Sandford, Abingdon, OXON OX13 6JP
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