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The
Cathedral Church
of Saint John
Ten Concord Ave.
Wilmington
Delaware
19802

voice: (302) 654-6279
fax: (302) 777-5789

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Parking lot
on Concord Avenue

  

Dean’s Letter to the Parish

February, 2009
Episcopal Cathedral Church
of Saint John
Wilmington, Delaware

Dear Friends in Christ,

As I am writing this on Wednesday the 14th of January, my thoughts are leaping ahead to Tuesday the 20th. At 12:00 p.m. on that day, Barack H. Obama takes the oath of office and then addresses the nation as the 44th President of the United States of America. The eyes and ears of the whole world will be watching that ritual and listening to those words in hope and expectation.

Inauguration day is a day of celebration with all its pomp and circumstances. It is also a day for the nation’s rededication to serving the finest and truest values of its heritage. Thus, not only pomp and circumstance, but solemnity as well. The integrity of the outward and visible signs of the day is depended upon how faithfully the nation lives out what those signs represent. Our prayers for President Obama and for our nation and the world.

My thoughts are also leaping ahead to the 20th of January because it is the day that I and several others from the Diocese of Delaware leave for Palestine/Israel. The purpose of the trip is to engage the life of Jesus of Nazareth in the land in which that life was lived. In Jesus’ day, that land was burdened with political, social, and religious unrest and turmoil. Human life was too often held less than dear. In the years since Jesus’ ministry in Roman Palestine this unrest and turmoil has been repeated, life continues to be devalued. Yes, even unto our own day.

This has become terribly and horribly real in the last several weeks. For years, border closings and settlement expansions on the part of Israel have been met with suicide bombings and short range rocket attacks on the part of Palestinians. The border closings choke the life line of the Palestinians and the settlement expansions give lie to words about a two state solution. The suicide bombings and rocket attacks bring anxiety into every day Israeli life.

As I am writing this, the people of Gaza are paying a cruel and wicked price for this tit for tat sick game being played out at their expense. The thoughtlessness of the Hamas rocket launchers is being trumped for the moment by the madness of Israel’s response. At some point, one or both sides will claim victory or success. But, hopefully, we will not be misled by that. There will be no victory for either side. Hamas will be presiding over a people in agony, and Israel will have fertilized the seeds of hatred.

However, since we are not to be without hope, we can pray that this time, out of this sorrow of human brokenness, the voice of the peacemakers may be heard in the land of the Prince of Peace, and in all lands. That the witness of the horrors of Gaza, Iraq, Afghanistan and on and on, will be so unacceptable that the way of peace and justice will be valued over the way of power and subjugation. That the values of the Kingdom of God will be the norm on earth as in heaven.

I encourage you to pay attention to the Epiphany collects. They speak to both this time of transition in our country and the brokenness of so much of our world. Epiphany is the season of the manifestation of God’s redeeming love to the world God created. The light of that love will not be extinguished by evil. The threat to it is the timidity and/or indifference of those who claim it with words but fail it with action. May those who take leadership remember that it is the peacemakers who are blessed.

Faithfully,
The Very Reverend William B. Lane

Dean’s Sermons:

Cathedral Call Letters from the Dean

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