This morning’s reading from the Letter to the Hebrews begins with the boldest and most unambiguous statement possible of what’s new and different about Christmas. God has always been communicating with humanity, in any number of ways; but what we need from God is more than just information. The climax of the story is the sending of a Son: when all has been said and done on the level of information what still needs to be made clear to us is that the point of it all is relationship. God speaks at last through a Son, so that we can grasp the fact that really knowing God, really responding to his Word of promise and life, is a matter of relationship. It’s becoming God’s child. And the consequence is that we ourselves learn to speak and act in such a way that others want to share that relationship.

The full text and audio of the sermon [MP3] are available on the Archbishop of Canterbury’s website.
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God speaks at last through a Son, so that we can grasp the fact that really knowing God, really responding to his Word of promise and life, is a matter of relationship. It’s becoming God’s child. And the consequence is that we ourselves learn to speak and act in such a way that others want to share that relationship.

and what is that way of speaking and acting? In the Collect for Church Unity (BCP p 204), we par to “be united in one body…that the world may believe in him whom thou didst send, the same thy Son Jesus Christ”, which comes from Jesus’ prayer in the Upper Room, recorded in John 17:20-23. Does the sight of the Church just being the Church draw people to Christ? Is the Episcopal Church shrinking—at least in part—because it isn’t and hasn’t been for my entire adult life and maybe longer, united either within itself or with other Anglican churches? Is my utter failure as an evangelist (in the thirty-plus years I have been a believer I can think of only one person who sought baptism at least partly because of something I said to him) due to my lone-wolf tendencies?