Diocesan News05 Oct 10

Presidential Address to the Meath and Kildare Diocesan Synod on Saturday 2 October 2010

FACING THE FUTURE WELL – 2 ABCs

I do hope that what I want to talk about this morning will not sound too contrived in structure. I can only assure you that the content was almost complete in my mind, before an emerging structure occurred to me.

And so I want us now to look at what I am calling “facing the future well” as a Diocese, as parishes, and indeed as individual Christian disciples – and to structure this short address as two “ABCs”, one ABC to shun, and the other “ABC” to embrace.

I certainly do not intend, with my first set of ABCs (those to avoid), to suggest that these are the existing characteristics of Meath and Kildare diocese or its parishes, but merely to suggest that the prevailing culture in which we live would encourage us to show such characteristics, and that we must therefore be aware of them. Nor are the second ABCs – those we should try to develop and strengthen - totally absent from our corporate life as it already is!

The first ABCs then –The first A, the one to overcome and to reject, is the all-pervasive A of Anger. I find myself becoming increasingly aware of - and deeply concerned by - the level of sheer irrational anger at which many people seem to live their lives and, indeed,  as they are encouraged to exist by the culture in which we are living today.

We are being encouraged - every time we switch on a radio or television or read a newspaper - to be angry, to stand up for ourselves, not with respect for others (or ourselves) but with aggression and belligerence. I am certainly not suggesting that the call of a Christian is to be passive and indifferent to wrongs and to injustice in the world around, but this is an entirely different matter. We seem to have reached a level of immaturity in Irish society where anything that goes wrong in any part of our lives is the fault of someone else, who must be made the target of our rage. Yes, there are foolish, selfish and greedy people who may carelessly inflict suffering on others, but you and I need to be extremely careful in response to look very carefully and thoughtfully at the given situation, and then - calmly, analytically and (above all constructively) - to see how things may best be resolved.

We are of course all “hard-wired” as human beings to rationalise our anger, and to cast our anger in our minds as righteous indignation against injustice, whereas very often it is merely wounded pride, self-obsession and self-centredness on stilts. Self-indulgent anger not only feeds itself to greater heights of self-indulgent anger, it also makes the individual look rather silly. If we could only learn to be objective and  composed - even if not passive - about whatever difficulties we may face (whether in our own lives or in the life of our communities, our parishes or our country) we would achieve far more in the true spirit of the Gospel. Bitter and angry people are not only damaged people; they are no witness to the light of Christ.

The first B – to reject – is to be Backward-facing as parishes or as a diocese. As a society, we are being told constantly that the height of the Celtic Tiger boom is where we still ought to be – that was a great place to be, and this is where we should try to be again. Wrong!  Yet we have become infected by this mantra. As a Church I believe that the tired political cliché, “We are where we are” might usefully be expanded and amplified in our minds to, “We are not what we once were.. and this may in fact not be a bad thing”. We can no longer make foolish assumptions about our place in society or our standing in other peoples’ respect or affection. To look back constantly to a cosy vision of packed churches, dozens of clergy, bulging Sunday Schools and no financial cares, is not only a sad distortion of reality, it is also extremely dangerous. It implies that the future could be like the past, if only other people – always other people – would just do things better or more energetically. Actually, no.  No, because our future is summed up in one word, “Mission”. We are to be a missionary church in our own setting - each one of us committed to this mission, a mission that will make things really different. Otherwise we will simply slide down a sad path, looking back through absurdly rose-tinted spectacles at a past that never was.

And the last of the first group, C.  We are to overcome Carelessness – carelessness in our commitment, in our involvement, or in our loyalty to Christ and his Church. It would be tempting to rant at length about carelessness in church-going, with supposed “regular church-going” often meaning an individual going to church now and then and if there is nothing more pressing or interesting to do on a Sunday morning. But if carelessness is certainly evident in church-going habits today, it is symptomatic of a wider malaise. A total and unswerving commitment to anything or any cause is not seen as a virtue but as an eccentricity in our society. Volunteerism of any kind – as much in sports clubs as in political parties – is coming under huge pressure, as a self-concerned individualism which doesn’t “want to be tied down” has replaced an altruistic concern for the wider world, for the other person.  Cynicism (another “C” incidentally) and self-interest have replaced the undoubted virtue of dedicated unpaid service to the community. I again pay a warm tribute and express gratitude on behalf of the diocese to those who in our parishes do indeed give a high level of unselfish commitment to the service of others in whatever capacity, even as I warn against the general culture of carelessness threatening to infect the life of our parishes.

And the positives – those good things, those virtues that we must learn to cultivate and develop, if we are to be faithful to our Christian calling to bring the world to Christ, and Christ to the world.

The A to embrace may sound unexpected – we are to be an Accommodating people, not accommodating in the shallow sense of allowing anything to happen, but accommodating in its positive sense – capable of accommodating difference, newness, change.. above all, accommodating people and ideas that are different or challenging to everything that is familiar. I believe that we have a Gospel to proclaim, a Gospel that is for all people in every place, but that we hide this Gospel by assuming that it should always be in the image that we most like or with which we feel most comfortable. We know that in the sadness, fear, mistrust and dislocation of Ireland today, there is a deep ache in people for meaning, for hope, for direction in life. The Gospel provides such meaning for people’s lives at their deepest level. But we do not own the Gospel. We all have to be ready to listen as well as to preach, to change in some ways just as we must stand firm in other ways, to be a place where people may find welcome, and a welcome that is not just on our terms.

To give a very simple if topical example, a number of us here today were at the very successful youth service in the Cathedral in Trim last Saturday night. It was different, literally wildly different - at times noisy, certainly exuberant, and uninhibited beyond measure. Not a weekly style of worship for all of us, but at Diocesan Council the other evening, I not only commended the Youth Officer and her team for organising this service, but also the people of the Cathedral for having the maturity and vision to host an event – to accommodate an event – so totally outside its tradition, for that occasion. Not all will be new, not all will be different, but if we cannot ever accommodate newness, difference or experiment, we will be beating a drum to which fewer and fewer will march. Be an accommodating place for people and for ideas that are beyond our experience or our sense of the familiar.

My positive B connects in many ways with this theme. I remember being struck a few years ago hearing a former Bishop of Edinburgh and Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church, Bishop Richard Holloway, speak of the Episcopal Church in Scotland – a small church, very much smaller than the Church of Ireland even in the Republic – as “a brave wee Church”. If the Church does not stand up and stand out as Brave, visibly brave in what it says and what it does, we are - to use that popular piece of jargon - not fit for purpose. Bravery means being ready to risk, and  we have to remember always that risk is a Gospel imperative – “Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it. What does it profit them if they gain the whole world, but lose or forfeit themselves? (Luke 9.24) It would be a useful exercise if parishes were to ask themselves a horrible question:  “For the furtherance of our mission in the world and in order to enable us to do other more important things for the Kingdom of God, what should we as a parish give up?” The question is not “What might we be prepared to give up if absolutely necessary, and if forced to do so?” What are our priorities – Are they brave priorities, or are they cowardly priorities to do with survival, self-esteem and status? What does it profit them if they gain the whole world, but lose or forfeit themselves? We are, I know, perfectly capable of doing brave things as a diocese – keeping to our Jubilee pledge of giving .7% of our income to third world development  as a first call on our money, or appointing a youth officer in the middle of a recession. We must never stop being brave; it is central to our Christian calling.

And the final letter, the positive “C”. We are to be Confident in what we are as Christians, and in whom we represent, Jesus Christ. We do not need to be apologetic for being followers of Christ and in following certain principles because this is what we are. To my mind, one of the wonderful aspects of the recent Papal visit to the United Kingdom was to see that, despite the orchestrated and concentrated sneering and taunting of supposedly liberal opinion and would-be opinion formers on both sides of the Irish Sea, hundreds of thousands of people rightly paid no attention whatsoever, and went to great efforts to celebrate the Pope’s visit. If we believe what we say we believe as Christians, our faith would permeate every part of our lives. There would be no part of our life that was kept separate from our discipleship. Above all, we would cheerfully and confidently witness to our faith in situations where it was easy, and also in situations where it was far from easy. True resurrection faith cannot allow anything to make it craven; true resurrection faith is supremely confident in its powerful and healing message and in its vital importance for all people and in every place.

I do not believe that we are - as a diocese - angry, backward-looking and careless people. I do believe that there are pressures and temptations around us of which we must be aware, lest we fall into those snares.

And I do believe also that we have much in Meath and Kildare for which to be thankful and on which to build. And that what we must be - among ourselves and also to the outside world - is a people who are accommodating of others, who are brave and fearless, and who are supremely and clearly confident in the Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

+Richard