Rowan Williams at The Episcopal Church’s recent General Convention. You may read his meditation in full.

Our readings put before us a vision of Christ’s Church that is both simple and alarming. We have been called and chosen. It is not that we have ourselves chosen Jesus, and it is certainly not that we have earned the right to be chosen by him (because we’re so orthodox or so open or so faithful or so creative or whatever). We have simply been spoken to by Christ and our fellowship has been created by his word to us. What is more, that word makes us his friends; and as his friends we share some understanding of what he is doing because he has allowed us to overhear his eternal conversation of love with the one he calls ‘Abba, Father.’