Welcome to our Diocesan Synod of 2002. A special welcome to those who are new to the Synod, following their election by their respective Easter vestries. I am also very pleased to welcome two new faces to the band of clergy of the diocese – the Reverend Rachel Lewis, Rector of Adare, who comes to us from Wales via the Diocese of Bristol, and the Very Revd Stephen Ross White, formerly Dean of Raphoe, now Dean of Killaloe.

It is also a time for parting. This is the last time Archdeacon Donald Keegan will be with us as a member of the Diocesan Synod. He has served his parish, community and diocese, and the wider Church of Ireland, for many years with diligence and distinction, wisdom and wit. With his acute pastoral instincts, incisive and perceptive mind, and his idiosyncratic sense of humour, Donald has enriched the lives of a lot of people on his way through life. His contribution to the lives of all of us is even more cherished because he is no stranger to the grief and anxiety that life is capable of delivering. Donald, to you and Janet and your extraordinary family we say a heartfelt thanks for all you have been to us, and may God’s richest blessings be with you all in the years ahead.

As far as I know, this is the first Diocesan Synod that follows on the heels of this year’s General Synod. I think the best adjective to describe the General Synod is “heavy”. Perhaps that was inevitable, since much of the business was taken up with the detailed and tedious work of Liturgical Bills and resolutions. 

The business of routine, detailed housekeeping is often unexciting, and after sessions of hard, concentrated work people ask whether some way can’t be found to make things more interesting. The trouble is, a lot of routine work is just that – humdrum, ordinary, tedious. Ask anyone who works in an office or any mother who runs a home. I have never met a farmer who is bursting with excitement because he has milked fifty cows and filled in a handful of forms for the Department of Agriculture today. But the routine work has to be done. You can’t get away from it. But humdrum routine serves as a foundation for other things. The would-be musician who spends hours on the tedious routine of learning scales reaches a stage where he can begin to get on with the music, which is far more interesting than scales. The church or synod that spends hours on the tedious routine of polishing and refining a prayer book reaches a stage where it can get on with worship, which is far more interesting than commas and full stops. The Select Vestry that does its routine work faithfully and well lays the foundation for a well-ordered parish that is worth belonging to. If the routine work has not been done, the higher level is impossible.

Having said that, however, there is always the danger that we concentrate all our energies on ourselves and keeping our own ship afloat. Much of the business before us today is domestic and organisational – elections to committees, boards, and Synods, consideration of diocesan finances and so on. It is easy to forget that there is a wider purpose to all of this. That purpose can be summed up in two words: witness and service.

We bear witness first and foremost to God’s transforming grace, not just in the distant past but here and now. In practical terms, it shows itself in the transforming of our world, making it a better place. For a lot of people it is a world that needs transforming. There is no point in going into the long and tragic catalogue – we hear it all the time. But there is just one area I want to look at that is close to home, and it is an area many of us can do something about, and indeed are doing something about. 

In most of the towns and cities of this country we have become aware of increasing numbers of people from other parts of the world living in our midst. Most of them, but not all of them, come under the heading of “refugees and asylum seekers”. I find it particularly heartening to see how local parishes and congregations make efforts to make them feel welcome, and incorporate them into their fellowship. I have a very strong personal reason for noticing that. Unless one has had the experience of living in a totally alien culture it is hard to describe what it means to receive the hand of friendship. One’s initial reaction to an alien culture is to feel utterly isolated, exposed and threatened. You don’t even need to experience actual hostility to feel under threat, and it can very easily colour the way you react to everything and everybody. Even the hand of friendship can be interpreted as a hostile act. It’s called “culture shock”, and it can be most unpleasant. I well remember in our first year in Japan we were convinced that every gangster and criminal in the city of Kobe knew exactly who we were and where we lived. Anybody who stopped you in the street to try out a few sentences of English was bound to be one of them. We were fortunate to survive that initial period of culture shock, but we knew quite a few people who didn’t, and had to go back home. So to those parishes and congregations who are involved in any way, I would simply say “Keep it up. You may never fully realise just how much your activity means.”

Unfortunately, it must be said that all is not well on that front. Not all Irish people are as hospitable as we like to think they are. There have been vicious and brutal racial assaults, and a lot of people have received obnoxious verbal abuse simply because they look different. A young woman, Korean by birth and now in her mid-thirties, has lived in this country for the past twenty-seven years. She has noticed a distinct increase in overt hostility directed at her from total strangers in recent years, something she never experienced before. She isn’t complaining – she has plenty of friends, is well integrated into Irish society and is able to look after herself. But she is particularly well placed to notice the changes that are happening. She can detect which way the wind is blowing before most of the rest of us can. Many others who have lived here for years can bear similar testimony. There is no room for complacency, in spite of the praiseworthy efforts that are already being made.

We hear a lot about sectarianism, especially in Northern Ireland, and feel relatively happy that sectarianism is not one of our problems. But sectarianism and racism are the same thing. They are both a statement that “they” are not “one of us”. When people despair about an apparent increase in racism or sectarianism, I’m not sure that that is the right way to describe it. It might be more accurate to say that new circumstances have arisen that reveal something about our society that has always been there, even though we didn’t know it. It is easy to be ecumenical when there aren’t too many people to be ecumenical with. It is comforting to condemn racism as long as foreigners stay at home. It is not until we are actually confronted by the “other” that we really learn whether we are sectarian or racist. And what we discover about ourselves in the process frequently reveals things we didn’t know about, and do not like. Sectarianism and racism are two of the most insidious and dangerous forms of division within our society. There are plenty of other versions as well.

Witnessing to God’s transforming grace must mean demonstrating, in practice, that it is possible to overcome these things within ourselves. It was one of St Paul’s proud boasts that the cross of Christ had broken down the dividing walls between us. A new, vigorous, enthusiastic church was able to contain within itself people from every level of society who, in the world outside, would have been rigidly separated from each other by class, race, nationality, or religion. The barriers of the world were transcended within the body of Christ, and a new model of society was born. Of course, as in every society, different people exercised different roles. They had their leaders, prophets, teachers, pastors, givers of charity, administrators and so on. All of these things needed to be done – no society can function without them. But there was little or no distinction of status – everything was gathered under the general heading of δικαιοσυνη – service, ministry. All leadership, teaching, hospitality, charity, administration, was a form of service directed towards the building up and strengthening of the whole body so that every member could reach the “measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ”. In the New Testament period there was no such thing as clergy and laity – there were simply different ways of exercising ministry. Some ministries were quite informal and ad hoc. They were only exercised when the need arose – hospitality, prophecy, giving aid and so on. Others were more permanent and continuous, especially preaching, evangelising and teaching. It was a very flexible and fluid situation.

Within the first two or three centuries things changed as the church became more settled and less itinerant. Some ministries became more prominent, representative of the whole body, and professional. Instead of transcending the divisions of secular society, the church began to imitate them. A distinction began to be made between “clergy” and “laity” that was patterned on the distinction in Roman society between the senate and the people, and the notion of “Holy Orders” developed. It has more or less remained that way ever since in practically every Christian denomination.

A Roman Catholic Franciscan, Fr Raniero Cantalamessa, has recently said that Christians today find themselves nearer to the situation of the early church than at any time in the past two thousand years. They no longer have the power and authority of Christendom behind them, because Christendom, like the Roman Empire, has gone. They are now back in the situation of the disciples in the upper room, and have to move out from there in the power of the Holy Spirit. The first Pentecost was a combination of wind and fire, an explosive mixture that turned their ordered and structured world upside down. If that is true, then it is going to have a profound effect on the shape and structure of the church’s way of doing ministry in the future. 

To give just one example, the question of Lay Presidency at the Eucharist is beginning to come up within the Church of Ireland. Traditionally in our church, the person who celebrates Holy Communion must be someone in priests’ or bishops’ orders. There has been a change in thinking in recent years, whereby the “celebrant” at Holy Communion is not just the ordained priest, but the whole people of God gathered round the Lord’s Table. The ordained priest presides, but the “celebrant” is the whole community. The argument goes that if this is the case, why then should the community not appoint one of its own members, not necessarily ordained, to preside each time it gathers? That was done in the very early church, so is there any reason why the practice should not be restored? This question has been looked at in other parts of the Anglican Communion, and some dioceses or provinces have accepted the idea, at least in principle.

As you know, there is to be a “Summit on Ministry” conference in Dublin in September. As a title, it doesn’t get everybody jumping up and down with excitement, but knowing the preparation that has gone into it, and the preliminary homework that has been done by the dioceses, what emerges could well be one of the most far-reaching and radical programmes for ministry that we have had for a very long time.

May I close by thanking all who have been responsible for arranging this Synod, and all those who have helped with the work of the diocese – Council, Boards, Committees – during the past year, and those who have represented us at General Synod and central committees in the past three years, and above all those who have given faithfully and generously of their time, talents and energies to the day to day work of the Church, and to its work and witness to the wider world.