bath & wells: from the bishop

DIOCESAN SYNOD 10 NOVEMBER 2007 : PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS

My experience of the work of the Spirit is that it is often in the unplanned, and unlooked for moments that the most significant changes in one’s life are instigated. Two examples of this reality for me lie in an edition of Sojourners magazine of 1980; and in the current edition of Resurgence. In the first of these, in an article entitled ‘Re-building the church’ the author, Jim Wallis quoted these words given at a conference in New York by an American Indian:

‘Regardless of what the New Testament says, most Christians are materialists with no real experience of the Spirit, and most Christians are materialists with no real commitment to community.’the speaker looked over his audience mainly clergy,theologians and church leaders and continued: ‘Let’s pretend that you all were Christians. You would not accumulate, you would actually love one another, you would share everything you had with each other and with the poor, and you would treat each other as if you were a family.’ He finished with a question: ‘ What is it that keeps you from doing that?’

The words were particularly poignant as they came to me after a particularly bad time in ministry when a community I had been a minister in had dissolved in acrimony and denial of all that the American Indian had intimated was Christian living.

Jim Wallis observed: ‘The Christian community is guilty of forgetting, who we are and to whom we belong. The message of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that God wants to live his life in us. Christ is made present in ordinary men and women. God intends to reproduce the incarnation in the world through a people who have been called out of the world, called into relationship with God and to one another, and then sent back into the world.’

That article, and the question of the American Indian, ‘What is it that keeps you from doing what the New Testament says?’ have provided much of the energy for my ministerial life since. I still struggle with the question, occasionally suspicious that I am artfully avoiding answering it in any meaningful kind of way, either because it is too difficult; or that I am profoundly unwilling to change my life in the way that the gospel seems to demand. All I can be sure of is, that the Spirit is in the question and its challenge, and that one day I will be accountable as to how I respond.

The second unsought for intervention of the Spirit came, as I said, in the recent edition of Resurgence a journal that struggles with ecological, environmental, and spiritual issues in articles, poetry and biographies. What unexpectedly caught my eye was an article entitled ‘The Currency of Imagination’, written by the late Anita Roddick, founder of the Body Shop movement.

In her article she spoke about the fact that people, wherever they are in the world ‘thrive on love and intimacy within the family, and trust and care within the community.’ She referred to Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs in which he suggests that ‘we grow from the fulfilling of basic needs  -food and warmth – to find fulfilment in sharing, even in sacrifice, and to find joy in the community and creativity.’ She concludes ‘ The consumer society provides little of either’ because ‘it keeps everyone in perpetual infancy,’ and ‘prevents the possibility of fulfilling those higher needs.’

Increasingly, however, ours is a world where people do not thrive on ‘love and intimacy, trust and care.’ Roddick’s primary focus of criticism is the kind of globalisation in which only money and power matter; and which seeks to stop at nothing to impose its will on the world; rather than one world in which there is global solidarity where the huge gap between the rich and poor is over come and people live in harmony with each other, with God and with the planet.

In Roddick’s view material prosperity has led to perpetual infancy for those who are its beneficiaries, always demanding more at the breast of money and power; and those who are the world’s losers, ‘left isolated, unappreciated, insecure materially and socially, or simply unloved.’ In both cases lack of fulfilment breeds anger, and anger is always a secondary emotion. It is caused by something else, frustration, fear, resentment, jealousy – anyone of a number of other emotions.

(I recall a black South African friend speaking to a largely white audience observing, ‘There is enough anger in this room to start the Third world War all by ourselves.’ Someone else was heard to whisper, ‘ Whenever he says something like that, I want to punch him on the nose!’)

These two articles, written nearly thirty years apart, nevertheless echo similar themes. At first sight one might observe that they are idealistic, almost utopian in their vision. It would be easy to dismiss them as unrealistic. Yet, albeit from different perspectives, they speak of the same thing: of, in Bonhoeffer’s words ‘how is the coming generation to live?’; or of sustainability, or, we might say, the kingdom of God.

What is it then, to return to the American Indian’s question, that keeps us from loving one another, sharing everything with each other and the poor, and treating one another as family? Is it simply that we do not believe that it is possible, or even desirable? Or is it because we are too caught up in our hurts, fears and anxieties,that we cannot reach beyond ourselves? Or is that the challenge to participate in saving the planet, particularly in the light of the various doom laden reports is too much?

Recently this synod approved a report on our need to be more proactive in care for the environment, and to work for a more sustainable future. As is the manner of these things it was presented with passion and the usual demand for a post to ensure implementation. At one level or another many of us would have succumbed to some feeling of guilt, and dare I say it, we’re pretty good at the guilt business.

In my DVD series, David Garmston in the final programme suggests that I have been a campaigner on environmental issues for a long time. There is no false modesty in the way in which I parry the question. I am, as I suspect many of my generation are, a late convert to these matters. Perhaps because the conversion is late, I do not think that playing the ‘guilty’ card works. No one can point the finger at another; all of us are caught up in the petro-economy that affects every dimension of our lives.

Yet as in so many things, we get caught up in the spirit of the age. Part of the spirit of our age is the blame culture. Someone has to be blamed. While we are wasting energy on looking around for the right person, group or organisation to take responsibility, we lose the opportunity to make the small changes that each of us can make individually, and we fail to make the alliances with people of like mind to effect change together, and to work with others, even those to whom we are opposed in order to bring about institutional and structural change.

Recently a simple statistic has caused me to change my driving habits. When the US in 1974 imposed a 55mph speed limit, the gross savings per day were some 255,000 barrels. I have noticed that by monitoring my speed limits alongside petrol consumption , I can increase my mpg significantly. Virtuously trying this out on the M5 last week I was passed, of course, by a car doing well over the ton – and all my self righteousness, negated any virtue that I might have had! But you get the point. Our little can make a difference, even if only in buying time so that we can work on other solutions.

One of the challenges I face in writing this address each synod is striving how best to lead not just the synod, but the diocese. Part of the vocation of  being a leader is kindling ( and nurturing ) the flame of wanting to be better, and wanting things to be better. This is not to devalue things as they are, but to encourage both the raising of our eyes and our game, for the benefit of those among whom we are called to bear witness.

Integral to leadership too is vulnerability. Vulnerability is , as a friend of mine has put it, ‘a faculty of understanding; of unpreparedness. Of accepting that you do not, nor cannot have, all the answers.’ And perhaps it is in that very unpreparedness; in the unplanned, and unlooked for moments, that the Spirit acts.

Of course, it is possible to be deluded. Those of us charged with leadership at any level need checks and balances. In the governance of the Church of England, synods provide one of those. Sadly, in my view, the structure of synods encourage confrontation rather than cooperation. They perpetuate a kind of ‘them’ and ‘us’ mentality; ‘winning’ and ‘losing’ ; rather than a sense of all being in this together searching for answers not just to the symptoms, but the problems that affect us. In an age of spin synods have a tendency to increase mutual suspicion rather than release the Spirit.

Wangari Maathai the Kenyan woman founder of the Green Belt Movement  believes that we only really move on whether in church, or community by asking ourselves three questions, regularly and often:

          What problems do we face in our community/church?

          Where do these problems come from?

          What are their solutions?

She concludes, not surprisingly that poverty is human-made, created by forms of governance and systems that ‘exclude, exploit, oppress and humiliate those who are perceived to be weak and vulnerable.’

I believe that Wangari Maathai points us to ways of addressing the problems we face in the church too. She recalls the story of Peter and John going to the synagogue to pray and being confronted by the beggar who has all the symptoms of a disempowered person; poor, self effacing , dejected, humiliated, very low esteem and ill health.

Not daring to lift his face and ask for alms, he forces Peter and John to see him dehumanised and humiliated. Deciding that ‘the way we have always done things’ – giving coins and a ‘God bless you’ – doesn’t seem to change things, they offer a new approach. ‘Look up’ ,says Peter. Surprise overcomes the man; no one usually talks to him. ‘No coins today. But what we have we give to you. In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, rise up and walk.’

He gets up. His limbs feel strong. He has a new sense of self confidence and pride. He was an empowered man, no longer a beggar, no longer dehumanised. No longer in need of alms. Now he could go and take care of himself with dignity and self respect.

Peter and John’s decision not to do things as we have always done them, provided a radical alternative, empowering, restoring dignity and self respect.

This synod faces us with some possibilities for change, as our debate on the Structures Review will demonstrate. For the House of Clergy, there is the responsibility for the choice of a new Chair of that house. The issue of Extended Communion, and the possibilities of the Covenant with the Methodists, as well as the opportunities of the Budget also concern us today. It is not for me to direct the synod, other than in encouraging us to keep to gospel principles in our dealings with one another, and to bid us not to be afraid.

When we look at the debate in public life about climate change, much of it is delivered against the background of fear. Fear of what we might lose in our lifestyle, or of our possessions. When God gave us the responsibility to care and nurture the planet he did so out of love. When he sent Jesus into the world, he did so out of love. If our environmentalism should be inspired out of our love, of life, of communities; how much more our life as the people of God.

In closing let me just say a brief word about the Clergy Discipline Measure. This has been in place since the first of January 2006. There is still a lot to learn, but let me remind synod and those who read this address, that the Measure is designed to ensure fair and just treatment to clergy against whom complaints are made. It is, however, a Measure that should be used as a last resort when all attempts at other solutions have been made and found wanting, for whatever reason or else there is no other appropriate course of action. As bishops, Peter Taunton and I will seek pastoral rather than disciplinary solutions as the normal way forward, recognising the intent of the Measure, which is to deal with matters of severe misconduct.

Finally, let me conclude with some words of Thomas Merton. ‘It is not complicated to live the spiritual life. But it is difficult. We are blind and subject to a thousand illusions. We must expect to be making mistakes all the time. We must be content to fail repeatedly and begin again to deny ourselves for the love of God. It is when we are angry at our own mistakes that we tend most of all to deny ourselves for the love of ourselves.

‘The thing to do, when you have made a mistake , is not to give up doing what you were doing and start something altogether new, but to start all over again with the things you do badly and try, for the love of God, to do it well.’

So may it be for us all.

+Peter Bath and Wells