Press Releases24 Sep 04

Tuam, Killala and Achonry Diocesan Synod presidential address

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS

delivered by
The Rt. Rev. Richard Henderson, Bishop of Tuam, Killala and Achonry
to
The Synod of the Diocese
on
Thursday 23rd September2004
in
The Synod Hall, Tuam

Dear Friends,

Once again it is my pleasure to welcome you all to our annual deliberations: always an occasion of fellowship and common sense in our widely dispersed United Diocese. I hope you enjoy the day, and that the various reports stimulate a good discussion. In particular, I want to welcome Fr. Stephen Farraher, Administrator of Tuam Cathedral, representing our good friend Archbishop Michael Neary who unfortunately cannot be with us today. Few of us will forget the wonderful address given by the Archbishop a couple of years ago, subsequently published in the Irish Times. I had hoped that we would have as a distinguished guest the Bishop of our Link Diocese of West Virginia, Mike Klusmeyer, but he was not able to be with us today due to other commitments. The good new is that he is visiting the Diocese in early November, and I am hoping he can meet as many of you as possible.

I welcome our latest addition to the clerical family, Revd Kathy Southerton, Rector of Achonry Union, and we look forward to the arrival of Canon Sue Patterson to Kilmoremoy Union of Parishes later in the year. I would like also to welcome Steve Brickenden, our Diocesan Youth Officer, to his first Synod. Though technically not a member of the Synod, I will be asking your permission for him to address us later on in the day. I would also like to welcome Mr Graham Watchorn, from Ecclesiastical Insurance who will be speaking to us about the vexed but necessary business of adequate insurance for our church buildings. As we remember with regret the passing of our long time Information Officer, Brian Thornton, who was courageously present with us last year despite ill-health, I would like to take this opportunity to welcome Revd Aean Ferguson, no stranger to us of course, but this is his first Synod in his capacity as Brian?s successor. I welcome Janet Maxwell from Church House Dublin, and I will be asking her to say a few words to us later on. Finally, I would welcome Mr Martin O?Connor of Bishops? Appeal and Mr Albert Hempenstall of Protestant Aid, both of whom have presentations for us to look at; I would urge you to meet them and consider what they are bringing to us.

There is also one particular thing, Diocesan and National, I want to mention ? the publication of the Irish version of the Prayer Book 2004, under the editorship of our own Canon Gary Hastings. Only Gary will know the hundreds, perhaps thousands of hours he has given to this project, and the pride and gratitude we have in this Dioceses needs to be made known to him today. I had hoped to have a copy today to give to Archbishop Neary, but the print run for the launch last weekend was only fifty copies. But it is on order!

As all of you know, I have been privileged to have a Sabbatical this year. I have written about this elsewhere and ought not to bore you with all the details here and now. But I do wish to say this: The overwhelming feeling in my mind is one of gratitude. I am quite simply so grateful for the time out given to me, and for allowing some of my less obviously church related creativity to find a bit of expression. This sense of thankfulness is made the greater by the warmth of your welcome as your bishop returns to duty. I am blessed indeed.

You will be hearing the various reports shortly, and to any observer it must appear that an inordinate proportion of time is taken up with administration ? or, as it is often called in church circles, Maintenance. To some extent this is true, but it is inevitable, given our history and structures, and much of it is very good and necessary. Rather than lamenting this, we should recognise it ? and especially its logical consequence: we cannot start with a clean sheet, and we have to work where we are and blossom where we are planted. So I would like to record my deep and heartfelt gratitude to so many of you, especially lay people, who willingly take on responsibilities in this area. You do this administrative work, because you believe that it serves something greater: Mission. Maintenance and Mission and are not the opposites they are commonly supposed to be, but they both need each other. But in truth there may be a tendency, in times of change and uncertainty, to slide back into familiarity for fear of adventure, into Maintenance for fear of Mission. But the reverse may be better advised; it is in just such times that we need to focus on Mission.

But you will also see from the Book of Reports that Mission is a priority also ? especially in the Report from the Board of Mission and the Youth Officer?s report. It is nearly chestnut season, and it is worth looking afresh at these old chestnuts of Maintenance and Mission, especially as they relate to the West and our life and role in the increasingly alarming world. I can only touch on the subject in a discursive way, but you will see, I hope, how it is impossible to speak of the one without the other.

First let me consider a scientific perspective that might be applied to the survival and work of the Church. As a biologist who has done some elementary study on adaptation and evolution, I have often noticed parallels that might be of interest. The survival of a species that is found living and thriving in reasonable numbers in its environment depends on two main things, adaptability and reproducibility. This is a paradox, because it means the ability to change and not to change simultaneously. Neither of these can operate successfully over a long period without the other. On the adaptability side, you must have creativity, invention, change, risk, outbreeding, mutation ? call it what you like, but it?s something akin to Mission. But if you have only this, without some means of expressing the change or reliably ?fixing? it for the future, something akin to Maintenance, then it is rapidly lost. It comes from nowhere, and is connected to nothing. Moreover, if you have only the creative experiment without some means of reliably interpreting and evaluating the change, then you do not know what you should fix and what you should reject. Plant and animal life survive because of these provisions; an organic church or communion might be likewise..

New ideas should be neither indiscriminately fixed, nor rejected. We should note, of course, that some of the ideas and creativity will be timely and inspired; others will be quite simply wrong, or the right thing at the wrong time or crazy. How shall we know? Only by trial and honest evaluation. Herein lies another scientific principle ? that of experiment, planned, controlled, evaluated ? as a means to find the truth. In Church life, this is risky, and requires a broad mind, acknowledgement of different environments, a degree of consensus, and a steady nerve; yet without providing for this possibility, change cannot happen, and we are slaves to virtuous reproduction of the past, ultimately ecclesiastical dinosaurs, doomed to extinction.

Nonetheless I do wish to say something in favour of Maintenance, because it is too easily caricatured, and places of worship are too easily rationalised into extinction. I know that here in the West there have been too many churches, deriving from overbuilding sprees and the realities long ago of transport by foot or horse; and I know that population and denominational allegiance have shifted. But I still want to say this: Don?t underestimate the importance of buildings ? they are not merely bricks and mortar. I am not talking about historical or architectural merit, though that may be there. I am not even talking about the value (and, let it be said, cost) to the congregation, however dwindled, who might gather there on Sundays. I am talking about the unspoken value, the psychological and spiritual importance, of a presence in the midst of a community; a sacred space, known, set aside and recognisable, in bewildering and hurtful times; something that stands solid through so much change. This importance is both urban and rural. I think of the tiny city churches in London or New York, once in the middle of fields, but now dwarfed by skyscrapers. Who can not remember the utmost importance of these after bombings, September 11th, the unspeakable atrocity in Beslan - or the death of Princess Diana? Suppose there had just been a meeting room in an hotel! These are just the public examples ? we know next to nothing about the millions who, individually and crying with pain, or with unbearable and unprintable burdens, have stretched out to the church. Here is one from my own experience: I remember so well as a teenager cycling to tiny little country churches, pushing open creaking oak doors past faded notice boards with rusty drawing pins, and into the ancient stillness within. It may be dismissed as romanticism, but some of my deepest and most formative encounters, alone with the living God, have been in places like these. Notice that the doors were unlocked, the congregation absent. Had there been a box for prayer requests as in the wonderful Crusader?s Chapel in St Nicholas Galway, I would have anonymously left a testimony to my search. I have often wished our churches could be more like the Roman Catholic churches you see here and abroad, where on every weekday you see people drop in with their shopping, set down their heavy bags, pray a prayer, and carry on homewards.

So, Maintenance is not always a sign of introspection, conservatism, myopia; underlying it there can be a recognition of importance not easily put into words, and impossible to measure accurately. These churches of ?ours? are not ours ? they are to be opened to all; Maintenance has moved to Mission again, Mission by openness, Mission by inclusion, even if we did not realise it. We might note also that times change, and we learn what we have undervalued ? look at antiques or Georgian Dublin. If you couple this with all the other good things that actually live within our buildings and tradition - our liturgies, hymns, music, attention to Word and Sacrament ? well, there is a lot to maintain, and a lot worth maintaining! Much of this contains Mission; indeed we end our services with these words: Go in peace to love and serve the Lord; the Mass is dismissory.

Thus far, these may be comfortable thoughts to the more conservatively minded, and annoying to others. Let me redress the balance and return to more disquieting thoughts. From my scientific analogy (which incidentally applies to business as well), it is true that in order to survive, you must have think-tanks, pilot projects, experiments, venture capital ? yet without the machinery to reproduce them, test them and support them, valuable ideas and practices are lost without trace. This is most true when the environment is changing quickly; you cannot stubbornly stick only to the old formulas ? even if they have got you this far ? because they no longer connect with the changed environment. The fixity and almost digital obsession some people have with copying the past can paralyse our ministry, suffocate creativity and lead to burning anger, deep disillusionment, or sometimes an unhappy oscillation between the two. This I have seen in many different times and places, and it causes me no joy. The genetic code for biological reproduction is indeed digital, yet it always leaves room for change. In a changing environment, we should do likewise. Do you see the genius of the way God has ordered things? Perfect reproduction, but plenty of room for change; eternal truth that is always new. An inspired paradox, as is so much of our faith. The alternative, reproduction by analogue, is like a photocopier taking a copy, then you copy the copy, and copy the next copy? and do on. Depending on your copier, after a few reproductions, the image is blurred and ultimately lost. This is the danger of maintenance by analogue; the image of the living God is blurred and by its patent inadequacy, this points unerringly to the need for new ways of being Church in rapidly changing circumstances. The new need not eradicate the old, but the old must not paralyse the new. I rather like the new skyscraper in the City of London, shaped like a gherkin. I like it better for being alongside a tiny city church which is packed with worshippers.

So to this question of change. Our environment is certainly changing; I might well be talking about climate, but on this occasion I am not. I am thinking of culture, of the information technologies that land incomprehensibly large quantities of facts and choices into our lives. I am thinking of plural, modern society, where knowledge grows exponentially, but not wisdom; where there is huge growth in technology but with no let up in cruelty. I am thinking of a world full of war, disease and hunger, I am thinking of the terrifying instabilities of the Middle East and reaping the whirlwind of careless foreign policy. Greater disasters than those we have seen seem almost inevitable, and both the continuity of the church and its change will be essential. Where is wisdom in all this, where is truth, where is beauty? If people come to us looking for these things, in times of change, what will they find? We certainly do not have the monopoly on wisdom, but the greatest needs of our world ? creation, redemption, mercy, pity, forgiveness, reconciliation, healing, hope? are surely to be found in the great foundations of our faith, driven deep down to the bedrock of all that is. Our prayers, our liturgies, word and sacrament open gates of beauty and truth ? above all, meaning ? the connecting of all things, however incongruous they may appear.

Here, as a local digression, I need to say something about what we have in the West: I dare not be so arrogant to say that it is unique, but it certainly is very special. We should be encouraged, but also challenged. It is expressed in the Board of Mission report thus: ?Although our Diocese is widely scattered and numbers relatively small, our congregations are blessed with an extraordinary diversity of spiritual gifts?. (Yes, indeed and an extraordinary variety of administrative gifts ? and yes, indeed gifts in other denominations (or none), too). Couple this with an email sent to me by the Archdeacon during my Sabbatical. Referring to the appointment processes for two new clergy, he began: ?Please be very encouraged?. Both these quotations refer to the other prerequisite for evolving life or church ? givenness, or giftedness. There are many gifts here, and there are those who feel quite definitely called to work among us.

One body has many parts, and all the parts are given by God for ministry to which He calls us. How to marshal the diversity of our gifts, spread across the denominations and outside them also, how to harness all these and give them room for expression is a challenge indeed. And how to interpret and connect these things from the periphery of Western Christendom to the rest of the Christian Churches is a further challenge. It seems to me that, given such a variety of gifts, they should not be in opposition to each other. If your gift is administration, do it. If it is not, don?t. If your gift is preaching, preach, if it is not?.. ah! Now I wonder what you are thinking! You see the problem ? we are still stuck in the model of each of us being omnicompetent. In reality, our giftedness is to be slotted in to the giftedness of the whole. What needless frustration is caused by the demands to produce what we have not got ? especially when the next person has! God has created us to be whole human beings, not to do everything, but to do whatever we can do with a whole heart ? there?s the wholeness. He provides each of us for each other. The power of Pentecost, the spiritual driving force of the church, derives from all the different parts gathered. What a role for a Bishop! I confess to be far from it, though I see it. To see is one thing, to oversee is another.

It is certainly true that our congregations are blessed with an extraordinary diversity of spiritual gifts, but it is more true, and deeply significant, that the West as a whole is blessed in this way. As the Churches are drawing ever closer together ? in real ecumenical spirit (such as I have never experienced elsewhere), this becomes ever more apparent. There is much to rejoice in here ? it is wonderful. But the wonder shows up what is yet lacking; we still pine for lack of each other.

There is a further truth that is also wonderful, but should be uncomfortable. It is simply this; there are thousands of spiritually gifted people who are not in any congregations, of whatever denomination. They are starved of our gifts and we of theirs ? the limping body of humanity is incomplete everywhere. These people include many artists, poets, musicians ? our greatest truth tellers. Repeated surveys have shown what we know anyway; millions of people pray, but do not come near church, except for baptisms, weddings and funerals. The standard answer to this is that we should make worship more attractive, bring on the guitars and so on. But I am not so sure ? it just makes us twenty years behind the times rather than two hundred! In any case, we should celebrate our ancient inheritance and privilege of ministering to people in baptism, wedding and funeral ? points of transition where the deep, historic resonance of Christian faith is an inestimable comfort. This again points to where Maintenance opens the door to our mission.

Why do so few come? Here?s a possible avenue to explore. The figures vary hugely of course, and here in the West the proportion of churchgoers is quite high. But for the sake of argument, let?s suppose 30% come, and 70% do not. You can argue the figures, I know, but a percentage of believers do come and a percentage do not. Now for some crude mathematics, moving from percentage of all people to the percentage of one person. Might it be that, on average, 70% of the whole person finds no expression in church, no solace in our pronouncements, no identification with what we have to say? This is nothing to do with how ?attractive? our worship is ? that?s the surface, not the whole person. It is to do with how complete it is ? does it meet the whole person? Does it, like the parable of the Prodigal Son, meet the broken person, half way home? Does it admit people with their baggage, no screening, no turnstiles, no confiscation? Or is it more like boarding a plane ? expensive tickets, baggage checks, and fear a flying? You probably think this is ridiculous; but I have met so many people who say they do not feel good enough to come to church, or that their way of life disqualifies them from entry. Alas! How can you see the light, except when you are in it?

When I ponder this, it makes me wonder about the 30% who still do come. Again, it is too easy to caricature. I think they come because, deep, very deep down, despite our imperfections, the foundations of all that matters ? of meaning ? are still recognisably visited and expressed in our liturgies and supremely in the teaching of Jesus Christ. We have this great repository; we must share it, but we must let others correct and rebuke us also, for they too are part of His body.

Behind all that I have been trying to say is a profound uneasiness with a world labelled, dangerously simply, into opposite poles of ?either? and ?or?. The ?haves? or the ?have nots?, the Christians or the Pagans, the Catholic or the Protestant, the right or the wrong, the arm or the leg, the conservative or the liberal? Most sinister of all is, the good or the evil; in a local way, the polarity I have focussed on is Maintenance or Mission; but on the worldwide scene, a much more serious one is Good or Evil. The important thing these days is to see these labels together ? not to endorse or approve what is wrong, but to acknowledge the intermingling of the two. Leadership these days must be to call people to view apparent opposites together, to recognise with humility and resolve the contaminated waters that flow through all our lives. It is only a massive failure of imagination that can happily separate whole, or even broken, people into ?good? and ?evil? - or the church into Maintenance or Mission!

Let neither the world not the church perish for lack of imaginative sympathy, for poverty of vision. And, while we struggle with these, let us obey Almighty God in changing times whose command is simple and eternal:

Do Justice,
Love Mercy and
Walk Humbly with our God.