25 January 2003

Readings:
Numbers 27: 15-20, 22-23
2 Corinthians 4:1-10
John 21:15-17

What should a new bishop be given? I expect that many of you here have found answers to that question in terms of what you can afford or what you think appropriate. But if you ask that question more widely, you might come across some strange answers. As someone with a large proportion of Danish blood in my veins, I could, for example, look back to my Viking forebears, and think of the equipment they brought here to Dublin those centuries ago, when we decided to share our culture with you, so to speak; and on that score, poor Peter would be given a helmet and a long-boat! - though I have to say how good it is to be in a holy place founded nearly a thousand years ago by that Christian Norseman, King Sitriuc - 'Silkbeard'. But today's culture would probably want to provide something along the following lines - a computerized diary, to symbolize what a perfect manager we were to expect; a thick skin, to absorb any amount of tension around; and a magic wand, to solve everyone's problems.

But Peter is to be given none of these things this afternoon. Instead, he will be presented with a bible and a pastoral staff. Bishops have used these symbols for centuries, and each has an unnerving knack of coming to life on every piece of new terrain where the gospel has had to be preached. For they match the two images of the bishop that can be traced back to the earliest times - the teacher and the shepherd. This afternoon we are not commissioning either a Viking invader, or a manager, or a conflict supremo, or a problem solver. If that is what you really want in your new bishop, then you might as well go home.

Teachers and shepherds come, of course, in many different shapes and sizes. And each age will have its own particular needs in a particular area. The teacher is, above all, the person who speaks for the Church. Articulation is to the fore. Not, though, that this means speaking all the time, however tempting that may be. But people expect bishops to speak - and there are always those who want them to take a strong lead - provided, of course, that this coincides exactly with what they want to hear! In the Anglican way of doing things, the teacher is no fundamentalist - interpreting the Good News both to the Church and to the world means taking care how we say what we say. So adapting to different contexts requires some personal flexibility - like the varied callings to which Peter has responded so far in his ministry, both north and south of the border. And teachers, if they have any sense, are ready to give stimulus, which may mean the courage to see and articulate something fresh in the sometimes too familiar texts of the Bible. That book is not just for the bishop's words - it is for his life, for he has a soul to be saved as well, and the way he responds to the challenges of discipleship will, above all, be about example. But the bishop's teaching ministry usually sits uneasily at that point of tension between the internal life of the Church, which can be too absorbing for all of us, and the life of the world, with its questions, its frustrations, its determination to write us off as no more than part of the heritage industry. We must not tame the Good News - and here one is reminded of the famous words of that redoubtable eighteenth century Archbishop of Dublin, William King, who once remarked, 'religion that despises the Word destroys Salvation.'

Then there is the other symbol, the pastoral staff. When George Carey handed me mine, it wobbled slightly, and had to go back to the makers for a kind of premature episcopal 5000 mile service! Wobbling is part of discipleship, especially in its public aspects. The shepherd's staff is about direction, and the best way to give the flock direction is to know them, and be known by them. But there are subtleties in the symbolism of the pastoral staff. It is carried in order to be seen, and a bishop does have to be visible; yet there are occasions when it has to be left in the cupboard, not only so that others can get on with their tasks, but also because much of a bishop's pastoral care is far more private and delicate than the parochial ministry. And there is that crook, and that stem. The crook is for discipline, to draw errant sheep back into line, and the stem is for prodding the sheep that require encouragement. No prizes for guessing which is easier to give - and to receive! In a consumerist world, we underplay sacrifice and cost, because everyone is right, except those in authority, who are not to be trusted, because they never, apparently 'listen' - which is often code for saying, 'he doesn't give me exactly what I've signed up to in my private contract with Jesus.' A bishop's calling is to exercise both these challenges of the gospel, of being a focus around which the Church can unite, and a means of stirring up the lethargic or the cynical; and they're at their best when done corporately, when they take place as part of an extended conversation.

All this can easily sound unattainable - as if, instead of inviting (as I did earlier) anyone expecting a manager to go home, I was really inviting Peter to get up on his hind legs and go back to Waterford in pleasant relief! But that is not the way of things, as life is never that simple. For I can hear the voice of a certain Kilkenny and Dublin predecessor of both Peter's and of John Neill's - Harry McAdoo, no less, pointing me to Jeremy Taylor, in particular to his 'Great Exemplar', that magnificent devotional life of Christ, published in 1649; perhaps he would be nudging your impatient preacher to the Discourse on Prayer, probably in origin a sermon, which contains those telling words - 'He measures us by our needs, and we must not measure Him by our impatience.'

There will be much to challenge in the future, not least for the people of the diocese that receives its new bishop today. All our expectations need to be tempered by careful considerations of who bishops are and what they are for. Anglicans perhaps have had cause to think more about this than any other Church, because of our history, and the place we have in worldwide Christianity. There is something essentially personal about a bishop's ministry, not as a personality cult (or anti-cult!), but because the office of bishop is relational, like the ring and the cross Peter will also be given today: the teacher has to have people to teach, and the shepherd has to have a flock to care for and lead. That is why we need to ponder those challenging readings we have just heard: the calling and equipping of Joshua; Paul's wonderful image of all ministry being contained in earthenware pots, fragile but (as every archaeologist knows) remarkably lasting; and Jesus' question to another Peter, 'do you love me?' Bishops have to be called - someone somewhere has to fill that gap. Bishops are human beings, fragile just like the rest of the world - and they have to live the 'and yet' of the Good News every day, realizing that God still dwells among us, and is able to use us. But above all, bishops have to heed the challenge finally posed by the Chief Shepherd Himself - 'Feed my sheep.'