How time flies when you’re having fun. It only seems like last week that a Roman monk named Augustine became the first Archbishop of Canterbury (ABC). In fact it was 1,449 years ago.
Who’d have thought that in the year 2026, the Anglican Communion would be enthroning its 106th ABC. When I was ordained as a transitional deacon in the Church of England, you could not even be a priest if your name was Sarah, let alone anticipate a day when the head of the entire Anglican Communion would have that name.
I was ordained a priest in 1994, kneeling alongside the first ever women to be ordained priests in the Church of England. A staggering change in such a short time.
But that’s enough about her sex. She is not a DEI hire. Before she was ordained, Sarah was the Chief Nurse of England, one of the most senior roles in the UK’s National Health Service. She has served as a parish priest and as the Bishop of London. In her time as its Bishop, London experienced numerical growth in both churches and worshipers - bucking the national trend of decline.
Here is part of her first sermon as ABC: “In the Incarnation, we see God becoming one of us, and this gives me such hope for the church. In the ordinary and the extraordinary life of the church, we see God’s hand at work, the church rolling up its sleeves and getting stuck in where God is already at work, in the local and the global. The church through the ordinary lives of its people, continues to do so many extraordinary acts of love. God’s people, offering a listening ear, a word of encouragement or a prayer of healing, offering food, shelter, sanctuary and welcome in a world that so often seeks to divide us, tables to sit at, conversations to be shared, and being a simple loving presence, like the salt of the Earth, a light on the hill, the treasure of the kingdom, a church for the whole nation and for the world, which looks for ways of joining in with people of all faiths and of none in acts of service which will transform, a church which extends around the world with our sisters churches in the Anglican Communion, as part of the one holy, catholic and apostolic church to embody Christ’s love.”
I think she gets it. Congratulations, Sarah. We gladly recognize your leadership of our historic Communion, and we’ll pray for you publicly on Sundays.