20.01.2014
Concentrate on Similarities While Recognising Differences – Archbishop Tells Christian Unity Service in Arklow
The Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin and Bishop of Glendalough, Dr Michael Jackson, preached in St Joseph’s Church, Arklow, on Monday January 20 as part of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity 2014.
In his sermon he focused on Wisdom and the Wisdom Literature in the Bible. The Archbishop said that Wisdom was to be found among people. In this Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, he suggested that God was asking us to talk about God and with God. “The fact that we already have unity in Christ means that we ought to be out and about conversing with God with confidence and compassion for all we are doing and for all that others are doing. Rather than our tearing our hair out about why we do not have even more visible unity, I want to make a simple suggestion and it is so simple that you may think it is not worth making,” he stated.
He said that during this Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, Wisdom was asking us to have the confidence to take the gift of God and do three things: to do Mission, to do Witness and to do Sacrament. But he said that we could not continue to do these three things within our own familiar settings. “We concentrate on the things which are similar, while recognising that we are also different. At the same time we all keep our eyes open for all the opportunities which are given us for Godly conversation, with God and with our neighbours. We begin to live at the crossroads and outside the churches,” he said.
Dr Jackson said that too much of the language of mission, witness and sacrament had become frozen with and across the existing denominations. “It has also become lessened because, as denominations, we fight over it. I cannot but ask: Is it any wonder, therefore, that from time to time people seem to lose hope; that they begin to think that it is all happening over their heads – and, in fact, the reality is: very little may be happening?” he stated.
He said that mission, witness and sacrament should inspire us in our daily walk with God. “We need to begin to accept with joy the fact that in God’s eyes we are The Wisdom of God – rather than watching and waiting for others to be the people whom God has made us: in mission, in witness and in sacrament for each other and for the God who made us to be Wisdom for God and for others,” he concluded.
The full text of the Archbishop’s address is reproduced below:
St Joseph’s Church, Arklow; Week of Prayer for Christian Unity 2014
Readings: Isaiah 57.14–19; psalm 36.5–10; 1 Corinthians 1.1–17; St Mark 9.33–41
A sermon preached by the Church of Ireland Bishop of Glendalough
Wisdom of Solomon 6:16: Wisdom herself searches far and wide for those who are worthy of her, and on their daily path she appears to them with kindly intent, meeting them half–way in all their purposes.
The person of Wisdom is, of course, part of the person of God. She is not someone we often meet in our thinking and in our talking about The Bible. Perhaps this is because our Bible is less and less known to us, if I may use the word: conversationally, as the years pass into decades and as the decades pass into centuries. And yet, the real sadness is that we are the people who are among the very first in the western world to have been given the Bible in our own languages: English and Irish. It is to the bedrock and the wellspring of our common Western Christianity, St Augustine of Hippo and his Confessions, that we owe the theological permission to: converse/chat/gossip even … (garrire) with God. And the exploration of this very idea might be enough in itself, for an address in The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Our churches need to move towards conversation, engagement, interaction, lively debate with God and with one another – and with this strengthening into conversation with the world around us about God and God’s goodness.
What is called The Wisdom Literature forms a bigger part of The Bible than we might think. It always, always brings us back to seeing quite clearly that God is already where we might not think of looking for God – ahead of us. This should be an important encouragement to us as we gather this year to celebrate the unity which already is ours, as children of God and as children of the world. But this is also a challenge to each and every manufactured traditionalism, because unity is not ours to contain or to confine. The Wisdom Literature is very free and unembarrassed to use everyday examples and situations to describe where God is and how God acts. It is a lot easier to ‘get the hang’ of it, I suggest, than of many other parts of The Bible. It also tells us that the same God whom we do not and cannot always see is, nonetheless, always looking for us.
For me, this is good enough to be getting on with. It seems a rather helpful way to understand the God who does not want to lose anyone whom he has created. It explains itself to any one who has, for whatever reason, lost her or his way, whether in living or in meaning. Increasingly, churches across the ecumenical spectrum are learning and teaching that we are communities of the vulnerable, not clubs of the successful. And this, I suggest, is the expression in the Era of Pope Francis of the wonderful phrase of Pope Gregory the Great, the first pope: The poor are the Gospel. This work of God remains the work of God’s people in a world which hurts and weeps.
And so, in the middle of chapter 6 of The Wisdom of Solomon, we find a very relaxed and caring idea about Wisdom and therefore about God:
Wisdom looks out for people.
Wisdom walks alongside people as she goes on her daily walk.
Wisdom meets them half–way in all that they have set themselves to do.
Wisdom is helpful, Wisdom is friendly and Wisdom is open to meeting new people all the time.
Too often, churches the world over are slow to open their doors to those with an innocent, questioning personality; to those who have to experiment before they get it just right; and to those who are not sure it really matters that you get it absolutely right, that you are better than others so as to be good before God. This is the sort of conversation, the type of chatting which Wisdom can open up for and with us, as we walk with her in the way we live day by day. Wisdom seems to have a clear idea of what is good and she still can meet those who are: worthy of her and take them on her walk through life. Wisdom seems not to rush to judgement, and is all the better for it.
Where does Wisdom stand? Wisdom stands at the crossroads. Go, for example, to any town or city in Africa or Asia and you will find people gathering at the crossroads. Some are selling, some are buying, some are just checking and others are just chatting. But that is where Wisdom is to be found – among people and among people like this, among people who are special because they are people. And in our own situation, in this Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, this is what God is asking us to do: to stand at the crossroads, and to talk about God and with God. The fact that we already have unity in Christ means that we ought to be out and about conversing with God with confidence and compassion for all we are doing and for all that others are doing. Rather than our tearing our hair out about why we do not have even more visible unity, I want to make a simple suggestion and it is so simple that you may think it is not worth making.
Wisdom, in this Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, asks us to have the confidence, to take the gift of God to do three things: to do Mission, to do Witness and to do Sacrament. But we simply cannot continue to do these three things in our own familiar, limiting and denominationalized way. I am not in any sense looking for a new church which takes bits and pieces from existing churches and puts them alongside one another, however much they might enjoy one another’s company. I am talking about something rather different. We concentrate on the things which are similar, while recognizing that we are also different. At the same time we all keep our eyes open for all the opportunities which are given us for Godly conversation, with God and with our neighbours. We begin to live at the crossroads and outside the churches.
Too much of the language of mission, witness and sacrament has become frozen within and across our existing denominations. It has also become lessened because, as denominations, we fight over it. I cannot but ask: Is it any wonder, therefore, that from time to time people seem to lose hope; that they begin to think that it is all happening over their heads – and, in fact, the reality is: very little may be happening? We use the word: mission because as the Father sends the Son, so the Son sends the disciples and the Three Persons of the Trinity send us today – to go to the crossroads and to do the mission of God. We use the words: witness and testimony because the faith which we take for granted and the church which we attend, whether regularly or infrequently, is built on the witness, the sacrifice, the trust in the unseen of so many who have come before us. And that is why we owe to them a proper respect for tradition, for what they have handed on for us to use in our generation and to invest in the future generations – and so we go to the crossroads to do the witness of God. And sacrament – I take you back again to St Augustine of Hippo – a sacrament is a sign, a pointer in the earthly world to the heavenly, a print of God the creator in the world of creation. It is very important that we widen our understanding of sacraments – and go to the crossroads and be the sacrament of God.
The directness and the simplicity of these words, and of the actions which they carry, are the most frightening part of them. They ought to inspire us to do and to be all of these things in our daily walk with God. We need to begin to accept with joy the fact that in God’s eyes we are The Wisdom of God – rather than watching and waiting for others to be the people whom God has made us: in mission, in witness and in sacrament for each other and for the God who made us to be Wisdom for God and for others.
St Mark 9.37: Whoever receives a child like this in my name, Jesus said, receives me; and whoever receives me, receives not me but the One who sent me.