The Bishop of Beverley - Sermon for the Northern Provincial Festival

Sermon Preached at the Northern Provincial Festival 2010

In the world you will have troubles but be brave: I have conquered the world.

John 16 v33

When I was a child there was always someone daring us children to do things we would not otherwise have thought of doing. Sometimes it was something rather silly and annoying to other people, like ringing six door bells quickly, one after another, and then running away down the street, as fast as one could, before anyone had the chance to answer their front door. Mind you, that was not only silly and annoying. It could also be positively dangerous if someone were to get to the front door before the culprit had disappeared out of sight. All hell would soon be let loose as one came home to find the aggrieved neighbours had been round complaining. I was once dared to ride my bicycle down the steps of the terrace in which I then lived. Somewhat to my surprise I even managed to do it. I should have quitted while I was ahead but a friend said he had missed seeing me do it and I must be making it up. Needless to say, I spent most of the rest of the day in the accident department of the local hospital. It seems that even something as virtuous as being brave can be misplaced and cheapened. Courage displayed in order to show off is hardly attractive. Playing Russian roulette certainly requires more than a modicum of courage. But that only goes to prove how even the great virtues in life are capable of being debased and misused.

Jesus calls us to be brave; Jesus does not call us to be foolhardy. The secret of faithful discipleship is in being able to recognise the difference between the two and then to act accordingly. There is a bravery that is anything but foolhardy. We see it displayed, for example, by those remarkable soldiers in Afghanistan, who go out to clear mines and potential booby-traps. Just imagine, getting out of bed, day after day, and going out first to search for and then to disarm devices designed to kill you. And, most of the time, there is little chance of inflicting any physical damage on the enemy. More often, there is the occasional but still all too regular experience of seeing colleagues and friends either killed outright or cruelly wounded. Or, again, perhaps on a more ordinary level, just think of the courage displayed in walking against the tide of so much of modern life, being ‘counter-cultural’ as we call it nowadays. We can all think of the teenagers who still venture to Mass on Sundays while so many of their peer group think it a joke. We can think, perhaps, of the soon to be young mother who continues with her unwanted pregnancy while, all around her, there are siren voices encouraging her to seek a termination. Gathered here, in our distinctive tradition, today we ought especially to recall the courage of those who answer the call to live the religious life of monks, nuns and friars. They continue faithfully to live in a world and even in a church that sometimes cannot begin to make sense of a way of life that challenges so many of our prevailing current assumptions. True courage can be displayed in a thousand and one different ways and by a huge variety of people. True courage, though, is always a virtue that lifts you and me to a new level. True courage sees the essential value of doing something, whatever the cost that might have to be paid and then sets about that task.

In the world you will have troubles but be brave: I have conquered the world.

It seems that even Jesus’ disciples have trouble in understanding the need for courage, at least in following Him. The disciples in our Gospel reading seem to think that, since Jesus comes from God, He has everything wrapped up. It follows, then, that Jesus’ leaving the world to go to His Father should be just one happy joy ride for them all. Jesus has to remind His disciples in the world you will have troubles. Following Jesus is not like some magic charm that is supposed to keep at bay everything that is unpleasant. The disciples have to be brave. Those disciples are not so different from many about us today. We have, too, those folk who believe that following Jesus entitles them to a trouble free life. Illness, for example, whether their own, or that of someone close to them, only serves to tell them that God has let them down and so is no longer to be trusted. Since such people sadly have not understood Jesus properly in the first place they soon abandon their faith. They are all too like those first disciples who are so quick to forsake Jesus in the time of His passion.

It can hardly be the best kept secret that, for those of us within the Church of England to seek to hold to the faith and order of the Church as it has come down to us from the Apostles, these are difficult times, times when above all we need to be brave. We know that some of our number whom we love and treasure so much, have announced their commitment to the soon to be formed Ordinariate. They are certainly showing courage. We genuinely wish them Godspeed. Today, though, you and I need to remember that we, too, need to show as least as much courage. None of us knows what the immediate future is going to bring; whether or not our Church of England will give us the proper provision that would make it possible for us to stay with integrity within her ranks. Make no mistake; that is what we want. For all her faults we love the Church of England. She has nourished our faith across the years. Unless or until she gives up on us, we will continue to look to her to enable us to continue to enjoy life within the Catholic Church.

Of course, we do not know that we will succeed. But, you and I will try. That is why many of us, for all the inherent risk of failure, are even now trying to see whether something, for instance, like the formation of the Society of S Wilfrid and S Hilda, might succeed in finding a mutually acceptable way forward. It is why, even at this late stage, we continue to insist that, by itself, a code of practice will not do. You and I are not going to abandon ship until we are certain that, beyond all reasonable doubt, the ship is going down. Even now, we are going to work to keep her afloat. Of at least equal importance, you and I are going to press on with the mission of the Church within our various communities. We know that it just will not do, on the day of judgement, to stand before God and say: “We gave up on all that you entrusted us to do today because we lost our nerve in the uncertainty as to what you would want us to do tomorrow.” At a time when economists tell us that the North is far more likely to suffer from the present financial difficulties than is the South, it just about the last time to be giving up on the communities entrusted to us by God, in which to show His care and His love, just because tomorrow, or the day after, you and I are called to face an uncertain and possibly difficult future.

In the world you will have troubles but be brave: I have conquered the world.

Jesus is quite clear that you and I are always going to be facing trouble in one way or another. None of us could reasonably expect anything else from the Lord who treads the road to Calvary, inviting each of us to follow after Him. Jesus, though, ends today’s Gospel reading with that great promise I have conquered the world. We may be part of a church with seemingly more than its fair share of troubles but it is still Christ’s Church. For all our anxieties and hesitations about the future, you and I are still told that we are part of a victorious army. Contrary to popular opinion the Catholic movement within the Church of England is not a spiritual equivalent of Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow. Whatever the difficulties, you and I go courageously into the future. We journey onwards not because we are stubborn or because we are deluded. You and I go forward, forward in faith, to coin a phrase, because we know we are part of Christ’s Church. Jesus is risen; He has, as our Gospel puts it, conquered the world. Whatever happens in the future, things are eventually going to work out for the best. That is Christ’s promise. That is His guarantee. You and I may be set for a rollercoaster of sadness and of joy, of apparent fulfilment and of yet further disappointment. That does not matter. What matters is that we show courageous loyalty to Christ as we step out into the future. You and I know that ultimately Jesus has promised us that His Church will prevail even against the gates of hell. And, those gates are arguably a little more threatening than even our present seemingly dire situation. It is Christ, who makes such a promise, the source of our courage and also its final goal, that we come to worship in this Mass and to receive in the wonderful gift of Holy Communion.