Enthronement Sermon - 10th Oct 2009

When Henry Campbell was enthroned as Bishop of London in 1956 it was still customary for the new Bishop to knock three times on the west door of the Cathedral to be admitted. Arriving at St Paul’s, he did this – and nothing happened.  Turning to his Chaplain he asked – with some anxiety – “Do you think we’ve come to the right place?”

Given the fact that we are using St Cuthbert’s as well as the Cathedral for this service, some of you may have found yourselves asking the same question!  Thank you all so much for coming:  not only from all over the Diocese but also from all over the country and indeed from all over the world.  I am very sorry that Bishop Deva from Madras and Bishop Greg Venables, presiding Bishop of the Southern Cone, were both unable to come at the last moment.  Thanks also to the Dean and his team for their imaginative solution to the slight problem we have here of a missing nave:  and their brilliant organisation of this whole occasion.  And while in thanking mode, perhaps I should also express my gratitude to the Church of England for having introduced a retirement age for clergy since 1956 (even if that particular goal post does seem to be moving a bit at the moment!).  There wasn’t one in the ‘50s, so when Campbell was eventually let into his Cathedral he found himself confronted by rows of incredibly ancient clerics.  ‘Ah’ he allegedly muttered ‘the See gives up its dead’!

Before the service began you may have had the opportunity to look through the service sheet.  If so you will have noticed the ‘Archbishop’s Charge’.  This was based on a statement of needs drawn up by the Diocese during its search for a new Diocesan Bishop, and it includes the important phrase “You are to embrace the whole church with a Generous Orthodoxy.”

That expression ‘Generous Orthodoxy’ was originally coined by someone called Hans Frei. By ‘orthodoxy’ he meant Christian belief and practice in tune with the Apostles’ teaching and the church’s tradition:  and he wanted it to be ‘generous’ because, as he observed, ‘Generosity without orthodoxy is nothing:  but orthodoxy without generosity is worse than nothing.’

And it was exactly that sort of ‘generous orthodoxy’ that St Paul was talking about when he said (as we heard in our New Testament reading) ‘I have become all things to all people.’  He didn’t mean that he agreed with everyone, but he did want to be accessible to everyone and get alongside them as an ambassador for Christ.  So do I:  and our three readings today suggest three principles which need to undergird a truly generous orthodoxy:  listening to all people, learning from all people and loving all people.

First:  listening to all people. Isaiah 55:  ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways’ says the Lord, ‘and my thoughts than your thoughts.’

There is so much about God that is inexpressible and that we don’t really understand.  What’s more, as one theologian has put it, we live in a ‘prose-flattened world’, and we are bombarded daily with the banal and superficial, not least (for those who inhabit it) in the blogosphere.  It is easy to miss or ignore the mystery of God:  even in our churches, where we often struggle to get heaven into our heads – rather than our heads into heaven.  There is a huge danger of trying to get everything we believe neatly sewn up into sound bites.  But as Cardinal Basil Hume once put it: ‘In the long-run we all have to choose between mystery and absurdity.’

So it’s important that we should listen to the voices of our prophets and poets (who are sometimes the same people – prophetic language is often highly poetic as we know from the Old Testament).  Often what they have to say is uncomfortable.  Take for instance Karen Armstrong who argues in her new book ‘The Case for God’ that God is ‘beyond definition’;  or the mystics such as St John of the Cross who point us towards silence and contemplation in a world where we find it difficult to cope without noise, activity and distraction.  I was reminded of this in a discussion only last week with representatives of the Christian Meditation Movement in Cumbria.  Or take Al Gore whose film ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ contains a deeply unsettling challenge for us all with regard to our stewardship of the environment.  (As that great philosopher Kermit the Frog once observed ‘It ain’t easy being green!)

Generosity in ‘listening to all’ means being open to the voices we might prefer to suppress or shut out, including the ‘awkward squad’ in our own communities and churches.  Perhaps God, whose thoughts are not our thoughts, may be wanting to say something to us through then.  But at the same time, orthodoxy in that listening means never forgetting that we stand firmly and squarely under the authority of scripture:  and that is the context in which all our listening should be done.

Second:  learning from all people. 1Corinthians 9:  ‘I have made myself a slave to all.’

A ‘generous orthodoxy’ isn’t arrogant, judgemental or exclusive.  It accepts that we have so much to learn from others – including those with whom we disagree.  That includes Christians from different traditions within Anglicanism.  The Diocese of Carlisle is rather like a great ‘Jacob’s join’ (as I have now learned to call a bring and share meal!) – with our various different emphases, from Evangelical to Catholic, all bringing their own distinctive contributions to a wonderfully colourful and delicious feast of belief and worship.  And as we try to serve God and engage in mission I guess all of us realise that most of our disagreements and arguments are simply ‘weapons of mass distraction’.

A generous orthodoxy also includes Christians from different denominations.  I am thrilled that they are so well represented here today; and my colleagues in ‘Churches Together in Cumbria’ know how committed I am to what is now called ‘receptive ecumenism’ (that is learning with and from each other) and how excited we all are by the prospect of the whole of Cumbria becoming an ‘ecumenical area’.  Together, we are determined to do things ecumenically – rather than just do ecumenical things, and I was reminded of that only last week when I went to York Minster to pray for unity with our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters as they gathered (in their thousands) around the relics of St Therese of Lisieux.  I have to say that relics aren’t quite my thing (nor since the Reformation have they been quite the Church of England’s thing):  but it was an extraordinary experience and part (for me) of being all things to all people for the sake of the Gospel.

A generous orthodoxy also includes members of other faiths, and I am glad that they are also represented here today. ‘Learning from all people’ means engaging in respectful dialogue and in particular exploring ways in which we can work better together to serve society.  Being orthodox in such dialogue means not compromising our own beliefs: and from our point of view as Christians, being clear that we can’t point to any other way of salvation than Jesus Christ.  But at the same time, generosity means recognising that we can’t set limits to the saving power of God, or his work in the world as well as in the church: and that applies also to our discussions with people who would regard themselves as agnostics or atheists.  We need constantly to remember that coming close to our non-Christian neighbours doesn’t compromise our faith – it expresses it (though sometimes it isn’t entirely easy to keep a straight face..  I heard recently of a newly arrived off-comer to Cumbria who popped his head round the door of one of our village halls and asked what all the activity was in aid of. The organiser explained that it was a church event.  ‘Oh’ he replied ‘I don’t hold with all that religious mumbo-jumbo.  You see – I am an aphid’!

Third:  loving all people.  Matthew 13 ‘The mustard seed is the smallest of seeds but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs.’

This is one of Jesus’ many parables of the Kingdom of God, and a passion for the Kingdom and its growth is what ‘generous orthodoxy’ and our Diocesan vision is all about.

That means reaching out in Christian love to everyone:  in our church congregations, in our parishes, in our county and in the wider world as well. I take that as my mandate and I hope our clergy and lay ministers do as well, because face-to-face relationships and the building of trust lies right at the heart of our mission in Cumbria.  We all face mounting, and often irritating, administrative pressures:  but woe betide us if sitting in front of a computer screen all day long begins to take the place of visiting.  If we start neglecting our pastoral responsibilities, we become like people sitting on a row of stationary bicycles.  It is difficult – there is no movement – and it’s not what the bikes were designed for.

And we can only take loving others seriously if we don’t take ourselves too seriously.  One of the very few things every growing church around the world has in common is laughter – and the more we can have of that in Cumbria the better.  In particular we need to be able to laugh at ourselves, and today I can certainly identify with Harry Truman, who, when he became US President after the death of F D Roosevelt, was taken aside by an aide called Sam Rayburn.  ‘Harry’ said Rayburn, ‘lots of people around you are telling you what a great man you are.  But you and I both know – you ain’t.’

And we need to be able to laugh at (and with) each other – but perhaps not quite as cruelly as that Bishop of London, Henry Campbell, whom I mentioned earlier.  On one occasion he had to decline an invitation to be the guest speaker at some grand dinner; and was asked if he could recommend a wit who could make a speech in his place.  ‘In this Diocese’ he replied, ‘I have plenty of half-wits, perhaps a couple of those would do?’

When Colonel Gadaffi was given fifteen minutes to address the United Nations a few days ago he took a hundred:  and two thirds of the way through his translator rushed out of the room crying ‘I can’t take any more’.  I’ll endeavour not to make the same mistake: now, or in the ten or more exciting years ahead.

But I can’t finish without quoting the second part of that text from 1Corinthians 9.  ‘I have become all things to all people’ said Paul ‘so that I might by any means save some’.

That is what ‘generous orthodoxy’ is all about – and has been in Cumbria ever since the Celtic missionaries set up their preaching crosses around Rheged.  It is about personal transformation, with Christ at the heart of it all. Unless he is at the centre, we might as well not bother.

And there is a reminder – should we need it – that Christian discipleship is not some optional extra – but the whole purpose of our existence.  And that is why – like St Paul – my passion is and will remain to be all things to all people, so that I might – by any means – save some.

+James Newcome
Preached at the Enthronement Service in Carlisle Cathedral on 10^th October 2009