Whoever has ears, let them hear!

I'm pleased to hear from the BBC that Lambeth Palace has confirmed that the Archbirshop of Canterbury's hoped-for meeting with President Mugabe of Zimbabwe is to go ahead. 

Yesterday Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury preached to 15,000 Anglicans in a sports stadium in Harare, Zimbabwe. His inspirational sermon was on the gospel of the day, Matthew's version of Jesus' parable of the wedding feast (Matthew 22: 1-14). It included some very direct references to the suffering of the church in Zimbabwe and criticisms of Mugabe's regime.

Here is is the concluding section:

"Dear friend in Christ, you have given so much to the Church worldwide and to your neighbours in this great and troubled country. Day by day, you have to face injustice and the arrogance of 'false brethren' as St Paul would call them. You must often have prayed with the Psalmist, 'We have been treated with so much contempt. We have been mocked too long by the rich and scorned by proud oppressors' (Ps 123.3-4). Yet you must know that we give thanks to God for you – for your patience and generosity and endurance. Your life here is tortured by uncertainty and the constant risk of attack, yet it speaks to all of us in the worldwide Communion of the victory of Jesus Christ and the undefeated will of God to welcome people into his Kingdom and to seat them at the table of his Son so that we can celebrate the marriage of heaven and earth in the fleshly life and death and resurrection of the Lord. 'We have put our trust in him and he has rescued us.' Today we are able to enjoy a foretaste of that rescue and that heavenly feast in the Eucharist. And the free invitation of God to be reconciled and healed, to leave behind the paths of violence and injustice, is once again spoken out as we gather – spoken out to this country and to the whole world. What can we say or pray except to cry out with Our Lord, 'Whoever has ears, let them hear!'

The full text is here.

A prayer for the people of Zimbabwe: Lord, have mercy