A Sermon by the Bishop of St Albans

The Installation of the Dean of St Albans

Cathedral and Abbey Church of St Alban: 2^nd July 2004

… with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you. [Ephesians 1:18]

It all hangs on a word. You will know the apocryphal story of the school nativity play, where the innkeeper, a few minutes before the play is due to begin, is suddenly taken ill. The harassed primary schoolteacher, with all the children milling round in their teatowel headdresses and wobbling haloes, and Joseph and Mary not on speaking terms, has to find a new innkeeper. She chooses someone she thinks will be sensible and says, 'All you've got to do is answer the question when Joseph knocks on the door.' The play begins. Joseph and Mary drag themselves across the stage, all the way from Nazareth to Bethlehem. Joseph knocks; the door opens. Joseph says, 'Is there any room in the inn?' And the understudy innkeeper says, 'Yes; come on in.' End of play.

It all hangs on a word. One of the extraordinary truths encapsulated by St Albans Abbey and the history of St Alban's martyrdom, is his reaction to the flight of Amphibalus, the hunted Christian priest. There was no catechism at the door, no set of doctrinal questions; simply to Amphibalus's question, the answer was 'Yes.' Alban, whether knowingly or not, was in a great line of Jewish and Christian forebears. When God called Abram, there were no propositions to be answered before the command was given:

Now the Lord said to Abram, 'Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. [Genesis 12:1]

When God called Moses, there were no propositions to be answered; all that happened was the calling of Moses' name - and the reply, 'Here I am.' [Exodus 3:4] When God called Mary, there were no propositions to be answered; when Jesus called the disciples, Simon and Andrew, and James and John, there were no propositions to be answered, simply the strident, urgent call: 'Follow me.'

It all hangs on a word when the call comes to any of us: 'yes' or 'no'. That call, whether it be to Abram, Moses, Mary, the disciples, is of enormous power and intense consequence - think of Simeon's poem to Mary and his phrase,

And a sword shall pierce thine own soul also. [Luke 2:35]

And the call is followed not only by consequence but also by challenge - think of the disciples:

He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, 'If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me' [Mark 8:34]

And think of the entry of the children of Israel into the Promised Land; they were charged to

… heed the statutes and ordinances that I am teaching you to observe, so that you may live to enter and occupy the land that the Lord, the God of your ancestors is giving you. [Deuteronomy 4:1]

Discipleship is a tough business; first there is the unconditional call - to Abram, Moses, Mary, the disciples … and then there are the consequences. The only way to give expression to this truth about God is, of course, to put it in linear, narrative form. First one thing, then secondly, the next. But for those of us, lay and clergy, who try to be disciples of Christ, the reality is a bit more confused. The 'call' is not a one-off, something that happened at such and such a place at such and such a time; it is a continuous process. The call to unconditional response (no propositions to be answered) is daily - daily. And in that call lies grace and mercy and forgiveness, and compassion and understanding, beyond our imagining. (Moses, after all, was a murderer. St Paul, before his conversion, had been a kind of religious thug who oversaw the stoning of Stephen, the first Martyr.) Let me repeat, the call is full of grace and mercy and forgiveness and compassion; and it is daily - daily.

The consequences of that call are also daily: a daily struggle with the questions that trouble all of us - about purpose and meaning, about whether what we are doing is really God's will; and, deeper still, go the consequences, right to the centre of our feelings - of adequacy and inadequacy, of vanity and self-doubt, of hubris and despair. And further down go the consequences, close to the centre of our souls, to that time spent wrestling with God in sweaty prayer, blank incomprehension, or the silence which is dark and empty and yet palpable with God - and further down still, to that place at the very centre of our being, where the Spirit intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. Call and consequence are not linear, they have appalling (I do not use the word lightly) depth.

Now let me shift tack for a moment. I want to move not a million miles from discipleship to theatre; and I am going to read a quotation from Kathleen' Riley's superb biography (published by the University of Hertfordshire Press) of Sir Nigel Hawthorne. Kathleen Riley is explaining a theme, which

… emerges from an examination of Nigel's maturing notion of the actor's assignment and is a motif central to much of ancient Greek epic and drama, that of 'nostos' (a journey home). As with all good performers, Nigel's primary impulse and preoccupation were always to take his audience on a journey of exploration into the human condition. At its most successful this journey, which achieves its greatest immediacy in the theatre, is a homeward odyssey as both actor and spectator venture outside themselves into the experience of another character, time and place, and return to the familiar enriched by their shared discovery. In undertaking this voyage of discovery, Nigel brought to bear the gifts of the seasoned storyteller as well as an emotional truthfulness, a burning imagination and intelligence, and a penetrating insight into the character he portrayed. [Kathleen Riley: Nigel Hawthorne on Stage]

I love that; I love the sinewy connection Kathleen Riley makes between the function of drama - 'the journey home' - and the qualities required to reveal what that 'journey home' entails: emotional truthfulness, burning imagination, intelligence. But lying behind and within this activity of drama, created by writer, actor and audience together, is an unspoken commitment to love and an unspoken commitment to faith. Love, because you can only venture on the journey home if love is your guiding principle - that is, a vulnerability and risky openness to whatever the journey brings - and faith, because we believe that all human beings have value, dignity and worth. That is not a provable set of propositions; they are self-authenticating for the humanist and they are authenticated by God for the Christian.

One of Jeffrey's phrases which is full of insight is about evangelism, about the mission of the Church. He calls it 'bringing people home to God.' Perhaps now you can see why I quoted that piece about the purpose of drama, nostos, a journey home. But you may also see why I have talked of emotional truthfulness, intelligence and a burning imagination - and have also talked at the beginning of this sermon of 'call and consequence'.

Jeffrey's answer to the call to come to St Albans as Dean rested on a word. My rôle in the process, the third in the combination of Prime Minister and Crown also rested on a word, 'yes' or 'no'. Jeffrey John's courage in saying his 'yes' should never, ever, be underestimated - knowing what the reactions in the Church and media might be. It was a decision very, very few of us ever have to make, so we can only imperfectly imagine the process.

I have been aware during the process and since that the reactions to the appointment would be very mixed. There are very, very many who are absolutely thrilled; and there are some of my fellow Christians who have been (and remain) deeply upset, angry and dismayed. As I said in my recent address at Diocesan Synod, and on other occasions. what we have to do is listen deeply and patiently to each other, so that understanding on all sides may grow.

The letters have poured in from all sides, from those rejoicing and from those who are hurt - and both 'sides', let me say as strongly and forcefully as I can, believe that they are acting out of the highest Christian motives and for the most serious of Christian reasons which means that as Christians, we are in this together. And, let me repeat, what we have to commit ourselves to doing is to learn from, understand, respect and love each other, as brothers and sisters in Christ - and that will take patience and time, grace and truthfulness; but above all, it will take love and faith, rooted in and growing out of Christ.

So, here we are now, in this Abbey - a place which is 'home' to thousands upon thousands, a place which is enormously welcoming and accepting, which takes Alban's 'yes' to the Amphibaluses of this world with great and loving seriousness. The 'journey home' is lived and experienced within these hallowed walls - and it is part of the calling of a dean, not only to be himself 'at home' here and to ensure that others may feel the same, but also to take the truths represented in this place and in Christ, Himself, into the marketplace of the world. And in our world, what is looked for, above all, are individual people who take call and consequence seriously, who struggle with the beauty and the demands of God - and who do so with a kind of wounded but faithful integrity. And what is looked for in the Church is that collectively we may also be seen to be struggling with the beauty and the demands of God – and doing so, collectively, with wounded and faithful integrity.

All sermons require a biblical text. Here is mine, on this great and courageous and hope-filled day: Ephesians 1:17-19:

I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power.

Jeffrey John - that is my prayer for you as Dean; it is my prayer for this lovely Abbey; it is my prayer for our diocese - and for all who live within its boundaries. It is my prayer for our world. It all hangs on a word: and that word is Christ's 'yes' to us from his Cross and in his Resurrection.