06.08.2019
Archbishop’s Sermon at Holy Cross Theological College in Yangon, Myanmar
Archbishop Michael Jackson is currently visiting Myanmar where he is a guest of the Church of the Province of Myanmar, part of the Anglican Communion.
This was an opportunity to draw parallels with the ways in which God encourages us to learn of grace and goodness from those who are marginalised as well as seeking to assist them on the principle that: my centre is your margin and my margin is your centre. Within the grace of God we have more in common through our shared humanity than we have dividing us through our distinct contexts.
The argument in The Letter to The Romans is set in the middle of an argument about life in Christ and the power of transformation given by God through Jesus Christ. The Archbishop then drew in St Luke 4.26 where, in teaching in his home synagogue in Nazareth, Jesus specifically singles out the widow of Zarephath to whom Elijah went in the middle of the three and a half year famine even though there were many widows in Israel at that time. Grace combines with justice and compassion to usher in the new kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.