“I am going away, and I am coming to you”
It seems- to paraphrase St Gregory of Nyssa -
that we are always catching up with this Getaway God
This Getaway God is revealed to us, of course, in this season- as the Holy Spirit
who John Taylor, former Bishop of Winchester, called The Go-between God
who is God working His purposes out as age succeeds to age
leading his people, revealing his life,
and bringing forth His Kingdom in His world.
In today’s Epistle we meet St Paul on the move
Catching up with this Holy Spirit.
First to Philippi in Macedonia
and then out of the city to the edge of town
He goes out to where the people pray- or try to pray
and here encounters contemporary religious seekers.
Following one of them, Lydia, he heads back across the Aegean-
to Thyatira in modern day Turkey.
It is a good job that Paul was a Tent Maker, because in his vocation
as God-Chaser in Chief
he was always on the move.
I am happy to publicly admit that I find this dynamic in my religion- a worry.
Although in my head, I accept,
(in words of the Swiss theologian Karl Barth),
“the necessity of the infinite freedom of God”.
And- although in my head, I accept
(in the words of the missiologist Lesslie Newbigin)
that, “the church misunderstands itself if it overidentifies
The Church with the Kingdom of God”
Yet I don’t like continually moving and learning.
I find that the constant provisionality of my earthly pilgrimage unsettling.
The idea that the Spirit, as Newbigin puts it,
“does new things, brings into being new obedience”
is totally unnerving.
I know what I like and I like what I know!
And, like many people I suspect, I much prefer TEMPLES to TENTS.
However, that reaction aside, I know we must not permit tradition to become a handbrake for us who want to park where we are most comfortable.
Tradition may, I think, be more like a handbook for how to operate this vehicle,
which is- make no mistake friends – built for movement.
Even this cathedral- once famously described by a former Dean as
“a Bentley with the brakes on”-
was intended by its designers to move and go places.
Which brings me to the National Cathedral’s Conference 2022,
which took place in our Sister Cathedral in Newcastle, this week.
The conference was thus provocatively entitled:
DIFFERENT COUNTRY: DIFFERENT CHURCH
And speaking at one of the sessions, the Archbishop of York
restated this ever-present dynamic, I have been describing:
“(This) is always an issue for us”, he said, speaking of Church of England,
“that we settle for what we have got, rather than asking: …
how do we constantly translate both the Gospel we have received
and this expression of it, set in stone, in liturgy, in music and art –
how do re-express it to our constantly changing cultures?”
Herein lies the point I want us to digest today:
Our task as a Church is to find the Kingdom of God
and to centre our lives where that is revealed TODAY
Our purpose is to worship this God who is revealed there
And vocation is ask and answer that exact question:
How do re-express it to our constantly changing cultures?”
Our experience of the Kingdom of God- here in this Cathedral-
is an amalgam of centuries of such expressions
and the answers of former generations.
Much of what we do and are here continues to be up to our sacred task.
centering our lives on the Kingdom of God
and enabling the worship of Him as he is revealed today.
But we must also do the hard thing and ask ourselves honestly:
How much of our life together is NOT up to this sacred task?
What about our life is camped in the past where God WAS?
What about our life has ceased to speak of God?
And has become merely an antique re-enactment
of how people used to express and hear the Gospel
in a culture that really doesn’t exist anymore
to a contemporary culture that isn’t listening?
Conversely, how much of our life together helps DIVERSE OTHERS
who are not already here
see the Kingdom of God and tune in to the Life of the Spirit?
You see the challenge- yes?
Whilst not being blown about by what St Paul called
“every wind of doctrine”
– what we might call- “every wokish fashion or reactionary fad”
We must now be ABOUT God’s business today.
IF that is true then I think we have two options
Firstly- we could be on the Back foot
But when God’s people are on the back foot the church feels insecure,
It is worried that it has to move and change
It gives the sense that it is responding out of anger and loss
It is reactive and defensive.
It is inward looking- obsessed with minutia of congregational experience
It often sets the world over and against the church.
It nearly always spends a great deal of time talking about itself.
The second response is to be on the Front Foot
(and this is what I must commend)
Because when God’s people are on the front foot the Church feels secure,
It is operating out of confidence and joy
It is engaging
It sees the church and the world in a particular
relationship with one another
It is outward looking- obsessed with the Holy Spirit
It spends a good deal of time talking about THAT.
The Good news, friends, is that I think THIS cathedral is already leaning into the task.
Our values of Kindness, Excellence, and Openness, equip us with the right kind of culture and we are ready for the task.
How do I know? Well, because I follow the Dean on Twitter of course!
We must do the work of a Church for the Nation, she says- from her conference seat!
We must urgently learn the dialect of our culture and locality, she says…
We need to consider the complexities and conflicts of history and heritage- she says.
We need to listen to the excluded and build bridges with them- particularly with LGBTQ people, she says
We need to be a Community of Hopeful Action that responds the devastating impacts of Climate Change, she says.
We need to consider how we use cathedral space. Offering a RADICAL welcome that looks around to see who ISN’T already here, she says.
And beyond that- there is little I would add.
Except to say that these tasks rest on an understanding about the relationship between the Church and the World that is essentially positive and constructive. A dialogue.
A dialogue that mirrors God as he has revealed himself:
I AM going away from you
And I AM coming to you
A dialogue between where we have perceived God
and where others have experienced Him,
A dialogue between the Church we have inherited,
and the Kingdom which is being NOW revealed.
I do not think it is too much to say that such a dialogue has a sacramental quality
Because we will meet him out there and know him anew.
Nor is it too much to speak of sacrament of encounter
because we will discover him out there and be changed again.
Nor, finally, friends, and happily, is it too much to suppose that,
for those of us who encounter this sacrament before us this morning,
we will be equipped with all we need for the next meeting.
As this GoBetween God comes near to us this morning in THIS sacrament
let us receive into ourselves His dynamic and always contemporary life
so that when he Goes again away from us
we are ready to follow Him- our Getaway God
and meet him there in the sacrament of encounter
ready and willing to be converted all over again.
+AMEN
