Shining a Light on William Temple

The Rev. Marianne Allison, Chaplain and Spiritual Care Coordinator, delivered this homily on the occasion of an Evensong Service in celebration of William Temple, who is recognized as a saint of the Episcopal Church.

November 18, 2018
Trinity Cathedral, Portland

William Temple was not one to put on airs. He wouldn’t have been one to choose a Gospel reading—just in case he might be celebrated by the church one day, as we celebrate him tonight.

Instead, I think our Gospel reading found him:  the “good news” according to John, about the light coming into the world, and piercing the darkness was what animated him. To the benefit of this preacher, Temple wrote a commentary on John’s Gospel, which I have read. To the benefit of the world, Temple lived out that Gospel.

It chose him.

He was born in a Bishop’s Palace in 1881:  his father was Bishop of Exeter, and became Archbishop of Canterbury himself when William was 14.  William was said to have been a happy child, and a happy person:  a “once-born Christian,” actively engaged in his father’s work and in the world. Despite suffering from debilitating attacks of gout from age two on, his energy was boundless. As headmaster, rector, bishop of Manchester, Archbishop of York, and finally, Archbishop of Canterbury, he worked tirelessly, but was known for an unruffled serenity and good cheer.

He had a great intellect: Still, he was more thinker than scholar, more lover of theology than theologian. Above all, he did not separate faith and good works, and they came together for him in his work for justice. For the light who came into the world is love, and “justice,” Temple wrote, “is the primary form of love in social organization.”

Christ is the true light of John’s Gospel, but Temple saw God as always present in history, and there have always been those who reflected God’s light in the world. He pointed to abolitionist William Wilberforce, the 12 apostles, and the prophet Isaiah as examples:  those were not themselves the source of light but turned to the light and reflected it to others–as Temple did in his day.

There was indeed darkness in his times:   A stultifying class system, and a trickle-down system of charity rooted in patronage and rural parishes in a country that was now urban and industrial. Despite some social reforms, there were still terrible slums, oppressive factories, child labor, and grinding poverty. Temple came to maturity in the gilded age, where the gap between rich and poor became even more dramatic. There followed the slaughter and carnage of the Great War, a blight on the nations who claimed to lead the civilized world, and a great leveler of social classes. Then came the Great Depression, and the rise of fascism in Europe. Dark days indeed.

When Temple was in boarding school, a teacher encouraged students to spend their summers in the London slums. This experience was one of several that revealed his course to him, experiences that Temple couldn’t unsee.

First, he couldn’t unsee the poverty and misery, and the structural barriers that kept people from rising out of it.

Second, he couldn’t unsee that the ordinary people he encountered were made in the image of God as surely as he was. Above and beyond their material needs, Temple saw that poverty robbed them of the dignity of participating in and contributing to their communities.

Finally, he couldn’t unsee the distant, ineffectual role of the Church of England in the wake of these concerns. The Church was inwardly focused, spouting a bland public morality concerned largely with gambling, sex and drink. As Hitler came to power, its position was a detached pacifism. The Church was a fortress, disinclined to work with other Christian denominations, and across faiths. It was reflecting very little light into the world.

And so, Temple acted. He made all of England his parish. He reached out to the people–to young people, especially. Never lofty or distant, he took up approachable topics such as “What Christians Should Do Now.” He set forth principles for Christian social action:  affordable housing; education for all children; a sustainable income for all; sufficient leisure; and a voice for every worker in the workplace. He used his platform to influence social discourse, as a convener, moderator, preacher, and teacher. He offered others a seat at his table at Lambeth Palace; he wrote articles in popular magazines; and spoke on BBC Radio.

An attendee at an ecumenical convening Temple hosted at Canterbury wrote that the deepest impression he left was not his considerable intellect, nor his keen understanding, but his holiness. Reinhold Niebuhr said of him, “few of us have known any person whose life and personality were so completely and successfully integrated around love for Christ as their focus and crown.”

You see, Temple was never broken by the brokenness of the world around him. He simply rested in Christ. The spiritual insight of John’s Gospel, for him, was that the redemption of humankind is but one part, albeit an important part—of a very great thing—the redemption by God of the whole universe.  The whole being of humanity—material and individual, social and historical—falls within this plan of redemption. “Till that be accomplished,” he wrote, “the darkness abides, pierced but un-illumined by the beam of divine light.”

When he died in 1944, England mourned “the people’s archbishop.” He was a light to England, and a light to the Church. He enlightens the Northwest neighborhood even today, through the house that bears his name. But if he were here, he would remind us to think less on him, and turn toward Christ, the one true light. For while the darkness abides, it is we who must be the beacons—we who reflect the light of Christ in the world.

“The great question for everyone,” Temple wrote, “is whether we will ‘walk in darkness’ or ‘walk in light.’”