Diocesan News
Bishop Clarke's Presidential Address to the Meath and Kildare Diocesan Synod
MEATH AND KILDARE DIOCESAN SYNOD
SATURDAY 1ST OCTOBER 2005
MOUNTMELLICK DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATON, MOUNTMELLICK, CO LAOIS
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS BY THE BISHOP OF MEATH AND KILDARE
THE MOST REVD DR RICHARD CLARKE
[Extract ? the first part of the address deals entirely with matters internal to the diocese]
The national news over the past week has inevitably revolved almost entirely around the matter of the decommissioning of weaponry by the Provisional IRA, and the public response to this development.
There is no doubt that, whatever the future may hold for Ireland, north or south, these days will indeed be remembered as a highly significant point in the history of contemporary Ireland. The immediate responses have been of some interest, even if many have seemed almost entirely (and tiresomely) predictable.
But I found myself wryly engrossed by the reaction which seemed to be that from many interviewees in this part of the island. Sometimes stated openly, and sometimes implicit in what was being said, was the perception, ?It will be wonderful for the people in the north, now that they?ll be able to be like us in the south...? It struck me as interesting because it showed - as few other things could - the extraordinary inability of people to be either self-critical or even self-appraising. Is it all that wonderful to be ?like us?? Do we have nothing to examine ruthlessly in our own society and culture? I know that I have a distinct phobia about ecclesiastical complacency, but I raise this with you today for a slightly different reason:
The Church of Ireland?s ?Hard Gospel? project was originally spawned from the anti-sectarianism project with which the Church of Ireland occupied itself for some years. Many of you will remember a rather fruitful special ?Hard Gospel Synod? held in the Cathedral Hall in Trim late in 2003 in this regard. But the project has now moved on to a new stage. With generous help from public funding - north and south - a project director and field officers are being appointed to oversee this work on a church-wide basis for the next three years. If this is to be an all-Ireland endeavour, as indeed it is intended to be, we in this part of Ireland need to look hard at precisely what the gospel issues confronting us in our society may be. There are hard issues, and therefore issues which we would rather pretend were not there. But I hope that we will be able to face up to ?the planks in our own eyes? to use the biblical imagery, and not just imagine that it will be good when everyone on this island can be like us.
I want to suggest this morning a few things ? inter-related but separate ? which are hard issues, hard gospel issues, for us in this diocese to face up to at this point in our history.
The first is what I would call, in its broadest sense, Church of Ireland tribalism ? the sense that we belong to a particular tribe of which we are part, from our genes, from our ancestry and our background. Now there is no doubt that raw naked racism has not totally by-passed the Church of Ireland nor, indeed, some of its parishes, and for that we should indeed feel shame and an utter determination to grow beyond such an anti-Christian stance in our midst, but very often what we see around us is a far more subtle form of exclusivism, a special kind of Church of Ireland tribalism. We want ?the tribe? to survive, and although we may permit others to become part of the tribe if they are not too different from us, it can only be on the very strict condition that they do nothing which would alter the nature or composition of the tribe. In fact they must conform entirely to our way of doing things if they wish to be accepted. An exaggeration no doubt, but let us not delude ourselves... Do we feel very welcoming to those who are not ?like us?, whether the difference is racial, cultural, or even from their religious upbringing?
One of the things which is emerging from a closer scrutiny of the 2002 Irish census is that although in this diocese (as we know), numbers of those claiming Church of Ireland affiliation have grown dramatically, it seems unlikely that much of this increase is from the population movement of ?the tribe? into the diocese. Many people, newcomers to Ireland (or to this part of Ireland), may well have written ?anglican?, ?episcopalian?, or some other equivalent on the census return and have - quite correctly - been marked on the final count as ?Church of Ireland?. Some may not even know that ?Church of Ireland? is what they now are.. We are therefore talking about a large mission field for us, but not about an expanding tribe. How are we going to react to this reality? This is part of what the planned series of Ministry Matters ?road shows? will be discussing around the dioceses next nonth.
But are not being asked hard gospel questions here? Will people who do not have the same background as us find us welcoming, or not? Are we ready to be made different by the influence of those who come from a different culture? Because we will be made different. Or, and this is a real hard gospel question - Would we sooner disappear slowly (albeit with increasing momentum) or are we truly ready to be made different?
The second hard gospel issue I want to mention is a concern I would call ?different Irelands?. In this republic, there are now at least two Irelands which simply do not overlap with one another.
There is one Ireland which has, for the most part, done reasonably well out of the economic boom. It contains people who perhaps overwork, who spend too little time at leisure or with their family in their home.. People who may well travel for hours every day to get to and from work, who have little enough connection with any community because, when the week-end comes, there is too much to do around the house and there is shopping to do, which may involve yet more huge distances to travel, because shopping is a new spiritual ritual which demands malls and choice and air-conditioning and attractive presentation of goods and services.
And there is another Ireland which might as well exist on a different planet. People who do not have enough, who are forced to live in a world of deprivation, but who also have to bring up their children in a culture which will inevitably take over when wholesome society ceases to exist ? a culture of fear and need, and also crime and increasingly violent criminality. My heart always sinks when a broadcast about yet another murder concludes with the words, ?The police say that the victim was known to them...? ? what is being said is that the rest of us needn?t worry, this wasn?t in our world, this was on that other planet. But not only is it a matter of politics that Ireland is splitting into two societies which do not overlap, it must be a matter about which the hard gospel of Jesus Christ speaks to us sternly ? ?In so far as you did not do it to the least of these members of my family?, says Jesus, ?you did not do it to me..? One might add a third Ireland ? those places of quiet desperate need, in which pride and a sense of dignity forces people to conceal the fact that they do not have enough to live on with any comfort or security. There are such places in every parish in this diocese. And these are gospel issues, hard gospel issues.
Thirdly, there is consumerist individualism. This is not just a puritanical rant against materialism and greed (although that might not be such a bad thing). But rather it is the suggestion that we all now tend to look at life, everything in life, with the eye of a consumer. Instead of asking the question ?Where do I fit into this??, we are more prone to asking ? sociologists and anthropologists would tell us - a different question, ?Does this suit me??
And this is not just when it comes to shopping, it is with life in general : ?Am I getting what I want from this?? Instead of asking ?What is the function of this or that??, we may more usually ask, ?Does this serve my needs?? Now this clearly affects everything we touch ? our relationships (even family relationships) may be more about whether we?re getting what we think we want or need from others. Our attitude to Church or God can very easily become, ?Does this measure up to what I want??, ?Would I be better off looking elsewhere?? or, ?Am I getting what I want out of this?? Practically speaking this is actually atheism ? of course we can be critical of anything to do with the Church and we can even question our Christian beliefs, but to imagine that it comes down to whether it suits us is to make a complete nonsense out of any pretence to belief in God. If God is God, we should be on our knees before him, not deciding whether we?d get a better deal down the road.
But yet the consumerist attitude to the things of the faith is emphatically a reality.
We look for choice in everything, Church included, just as we do in a supermarket or when we want to buy a new car.
We look for novelty in worship as in everything else, just as we may decide we want to try a different breakfast cereal, because we?re bored with the one we?ve been eating for years.
We expect more than we need, in our life of faith as in everything else, because a half-empty shelf in a shop looks as if the business is going under...
We expect to be wooed by the Church, even spoilt by the Church, just as we are consciously and deliberately attracted into shops or restaurants by the appearance and the sense of being made a fuss of...
As members of this synod, who are - by definition - close to the heart of what this diocese is about, we all need to consider the hard gospel reality that the question is not ?Is God or the parish of any use to me?? but rather, ?What use am I being to God or the Church?? This is what ministry - the ministry of all the people of God - is to mean. Please come and explore more what this is to mean in the life of every Christian disciple at the road shows in November.
I truly believe that we are living in exciting times for the Church. The challenge is whether we want to preserve a past which is slowly sliding under the waves of secularism and indifference or whether we want to grasp the huge opportunities that are there for us -
? There are probably more people claiming, in some way, to be Church of Ireland in this part of the world than has been the case for generations.
? In this diocese, we have the ministry of clergy who very much want to be part of an advancing Church rather than a retreating Church.
? We have discovered a new attitude towards the ministry of those who are not ordained, that such ministry is now not only accepted but welcomed.
What more do we need? What more can we ask God to give us? Let us then show our gratitude by forgetting the trivialities and the self-indulgence that can destroy the Church, and instead can we be ready to be changed by God and changed for God.