Silver Jubilee of the Diocese: Bishop of London's sermon

St Margaret’s Westminster
St Luke’s Day 2005.
Exodus XIII: 17-end. XL: 36-end IPeter II: 4-10. John XVII: 6-19.

I suppose that I have been invited to address you today because I am something like the ghost of Christmas Past. The Egypt mentioned in the first lesson from which the Israelites made their escape could I imagine be interpreted by you as the Diocese of London from which a part of the new entity emerged 25 years ago.

Anniversaries impose an obligation on bishops not only to fulfil their own diary commitments but to honour those of their predecessors as well. I do so today however with more than usual warmth remembering my predecessor Bishop Gerald Ellison of blessed memory, who with John Satterthwaite and others, played such a notable part in bringing the new Diocese to birth in 1980. It is good to see how the Diocese in Europe has flourished since then and how it has helped the whole Church of England to transcend the “fog in channel; continent cut off” mentality.

For many of us 1980 seems only like the day before yesterday. Every one was discussing “who killed JR” in the cult TV drama Dallas, and come to think of it I never did find out.

Anniversaries however are valuable in providing occasion to ponder what God has been doing with his church, how we should understand our present situation and what God is calling us to be and do in these early years of the 21^st century. Ours is a time which is supremely well informed about “now” but with much less idea of how we came to be “now”.

With this in mind, two texts spring out of our scripture readings. From Exodus, after the escape from Egypt, “God led the people about by the way of the wilderness”. From St John “As thou didst send me into the world even so sent I them into the world.”

The formation of the Diocese in Europe is part of the story of European reconciliation and integration which derived a large part of its moral energy from the terrible experiences of World War II and its aftermath. Perhaps the church responded rather more slowly than it might have done in only establishing your Diocese in 1980 but the mood in the 1950’s Church was one of energetic reconstruction rather than innovation.

The fifties were a Solomonic summer afternoon with bulging Sunday Schools, a shower of eager ordinands, a time in which modest pastoral diligence in parishes up and down the land reaped a rich harvest.

Then came 1963 the year in which as Philip Larkin remarked sexual intercourse was invented. It teemed with symbolism. Pope John and C.S.Lewis died. Honest to God was published. John Lennon said that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus Christ. It was the beginning of a huge social revolution bewildering to a Church which had in large part felt so much at home in Churchill’s Britain.

Various expedients were tried and absorbed the energies of successive generations of clergy. Synodical government, oecumenical rapprochement, liturgical change, structural fidgeting much ado about ministry. Some of the changes were sensible but the hope expressed in introducing them that they would halt the decline in church going and rekindle the interest of the English people in Christian practice proved in every case to be a chimaera.

Part of the difficulty was treating the fifties as if they were a norm. There was depression and denial as the Church became steadily marginal to life throughout the continent of Europe. There was a retreat from this reality into an in-house agenda. True there were occasional statements about the great issues of the time and even the conviction on the part of some that the world was waiting to hear what Synod had to say on particular issues. But the statements were rarely, with the honourable exception of the Faith in the City Report, translated into action which could re-direct the energies of the church into an agenda that was more in tune with the growing concern of the population as a whole during this period of wandering in the wilderness created by the new pot sixties establishment which came to power in the media and in education.

Obstinately 72% of the population identifies itself as Christian in this country and a large proportion of those as members of the C of E but what this actually means was vividly illustrated by research done by the two main political parties as part of the General Election campaign earlier this year.

I recently received a fascinating letter from someone who was responsible for 130 focus groups and for inspecting the entrails of 500 individual interviews every night of the campaign.

There was a clear message that people were universally concerned about the erosion of common values and the phrase “respect for others” was constantly used. The other area of concern was the collapse of moral authority and the position of parents was a neuralgic point.

At the same time the groups and many of the individuals were clear about who was to blame. Politicians and the media; judges and the police; schools and the teachers were all arraigned – unfairly you might think, but no one blamed the Church. No, the news was even worse than that. Although the concerns centred on common values and moral authority no one mentioned the church either positively or negatively.

Denial of course is one response to this evidence or yet another round of marketing – led strategies based on the assumption that we are in possession of the truth which we are charged to communicate to our generation.

The Divine Word was of course made flesh not words and Jesus Christ not only taught the truth but is the truth. He is the communication of the Father and the human face of God. He is always fresh and when he takes up his dwelling in a person then there is release from fear, spiritual energy and joy. These things are easy to say and alas the words have often become dead and formulaic but the reality can turn the world upside down. The church if it is faithful to Jesus must be the truth and not be deluded into thinking that we can communicate the energy of the Divine Word by reading out the wiring diagram.

As our pining for all the pomp of yesterday fades, as it has done in the wasteland of the past decades, we are potentially freer to look and listen for God’s future in the world. “God led the people about by the way of the wilderness.” We are please God now sufficiently empty to be filled by Him, sufficiently humble to depend on him. Now after painful wandering and much wasted energy we are prepared to earn a hearing rather than assuming that people are still hanging on our words. This demands a great revolution in our styles of leadership and communication but I believe that we are freer now to be the church that Christ prays for in our own day.

As you celebrate your Silver Jubilee with proper thanksgiving for all those who have contributed to building up the life of the Diocese over the past twenty five years, you can rejoice in being part of a fresh expression of a church which has continuity with what has gone before but which does not need some of the festoons and clutter attached to older dioceses.

You are a vital point of listening and observation of what God is doing in a continent which is being rapidly transformed. You have a calling to build communities in the spirit of Jesus Christ where strangers from every corner of the globe become kin. I know from personal experience that you are in many places responding to the movement of God and that you have heard Jesus pray in the upper room, “as thou didst send me into the world even so sent I them into the world.” Jesus did not say “keep your heads down in the upper room and sooner or later the world will come knocking on your door.” It is vital to the health of the whole church that you report on what you have seen and what you are experiencing, and that the communities which make up the Diocese do not turn in upon themselves. Introversion has been the response of the church to the cultural revolution of the past decades. With introversion comes fragmentation and blaming one another for our loss of contact with the world to which Jesus directs us. A church that looks together in his Spirit outwards at the challenges which face our world and our European societies can rejoice in our biodiversity and grow in respect for one another. Guarding against the danger of introversion is one of the many valuable roles which the Friends of the Diocese fulfil.

This is a time of testing for Europe. As the suicide bombers demonstrate that they have fire and violence in their minds, what do we have in our hearts and minds? There is a renewed search for strong common values but mere appeals to ethical fraternity do not seem to evoke the energy needed to sustain a civilisation. How can common values be maintained while so many people have been seduced into believing that “I do not need you to be fully myself”? God is making his urgent appeal to us in the distresses and addictions evident in the lives of nations and individuals in this zone of struggle. This is a time of great danger but also of hope because the essential communication of God can once again be clearly seen lifted up among us. Life in Christ, crucified and risen, united with him in prayer and a self sacrificing love like his, -this is what opens the door to a zone of truth. That is the true foundation alike of your Diocese, the church and of Europe as it struggles to re-invent itself.

So for the work of the past twenty five years we give thanks. For the great task of the years to come we say Lord make our way clear and deepen our yes. Amen.