The former Bishop of Sheffield, Jack Nicholls, is a wonderful man. While sitting on a commission with him (and others) for two years at the end of the 1990s, I learned a huge amount about humility, humanity and humour from him.
He is speaking at the Southwark Diocesan Clergy Conference at Swanwick and he has already made a huge impression on people here. This evening he spoke – as requested to do so – about what has sustained him through 42 years of ordained ministry in the Church of England. He did so by citing six people who have shaped him and one in particular is going to get to a wider audience now.
A now-deceased nun told him many years ago that there are only three things to be involved with as a priest:
- the praise of God
- the pain of the world
- the repentance of the church.
He went on to say that the place and purpose of prayer is to locate us at the place where the love of God and the pain of the world meet … which happens to be where the cross is to be found.
Churches that emphasise their praise of God without being rooted in and brought into the pain of the world and its people are living the sort of fantasy that the prophet Amos railed against in the Old Testament. The church needs to be constantly repentant because we keep focusing on the wrong things and failing to resemble the one whose name we bear: the Jesus we read about in the gospels. As I said in Berlin yesterday: if the church does not look, sound and feel like the Jesus of the gospels, then we are a fraud and a lie.
Jack clearly built his ministry on those three blocks. So, should the rest of us?
September 29, 2009 at 12:18 am
I don’t think it’s possible to effectively demonstrate God’s love for the world without acknowledging the world as it actually is (or as close to that as we can get), rather than sugar-coating things. A theology or worldview that says “God is great, the world is great and we don’t need to do anything about it except bask in the giddy happiness of it all” is likely to fall apart when someone encounters hardship and suffering.
God is great and the world is miraculous; celebrating and rejoicing in that is important. I feel we also still have work to do. Too much emphasis on the work yet to be done can be discouraging, leaving people feeling burnt out and ineffective, but ignoring it isn’t an enduring solution either. I suppose in some sense the praise of God should equip us to address the pain of the world. This isn’t always what appears to happen.
I have a lot more respect for the church now that I have encountered parts of it which acknowledge the ever-present brokenness and imperfection of the institution. I don’t think trying to follow the ideal of Jesus as set out in the gospels and failing to do so makes the church a fraud or a lie, but I think trying to follow any ideal, failing and then refusing to examine what went wrong and learn from it or in some cases even acknowledge that there might be a problem makes any person dangerously ignorant and somewhat less than trustworthy. Repeated over time in a large organization this is a serious problem. Perhaps the distinction is one between thinking of the church as possessing God-given authority, or God-given responsibility. Claiming the former without taking the latter seriously is indeed a sham; acting as if one bears the latter tends to make me perceive that there is something of the former involved. If I see someone doing their utmost to make God’s love for the world known, I’m going to listen to their words far more readily than if they claim to know what God wants without seeming to love those children of God whose actions they are attempting to direct.
September 29, 2009 at 3:31 pm
Thank you…I’d heard him say something similar to an Aff Cath gathering once upon a time, but this was the most timely reminder ever, as I struggle to assess priorities before a ministerial review.
September 29, 2009 at 7:27 pm
I think that faith is fine, but then we have to DO something to help heal the world.
Kurt
Brooklyn, NY
September 29, 2009 at 10:43 pm
Kurt, I don’t think anyone would disagree with you one bit. Faith is seen in the consistent action.
September 29, 2009 at 11:06 pm
Faith is seen in the consistent action.
Hear hear!
September 30, 2009 at 5:03 pm
‘ The church needs to be constantly repentant because we keep focusing on the wrong things and failing to resemble the one whose name we bear: the Jesus we read about in the gospels. As I said in Berlin yesterday: if the church does not look, sound and feel like the Jesus of the gospels, then we are a fraud and a lie.’
I agree with much of you but the Jesus of the gospels moved in the power of the Holy Spirit teaching on and demonstrationg what the Kingdom of God looks like. He taught his disciples to do the same and sent them out in Luke 9:1-2. They did what he did.
As a church we are more focused on programmes and commitees, and we have no power. Where is the spiritual power that Jesus has entrusted to his church and his people? We have lost sight of this and I have not
heard it referred to once at the conference. Paul said that ‘My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom but on God’s power.’ 1 Corinthians 2:4-5 (NIV)
So much of what I have heard these past few days seems dependant on
men’s wisdom. No wonder we don’t present the authentic gospel or the authentic Jesus. We have wealth in terms of property, education, tradition, wisdom, but we are sick, divided and lacking in power. I am not convinced this is how it should be.
September 30, 2009 at 10:05 pm
Anonymity isn’t a mark of the Kingdom either. But I think you haven’t been listening to what has been said. If you come to a conference like this with a tick-box approach, you will always be disappointed.
Are you speaking of your own church when you say it lacks power and occupies itself with committees and programmes? If not, which churches are you describing?
I am staggered by your critique. Paula Gooder, James Jones, Graham Cray and Jack Nicholls all addressed the matters you raise – but possibly not in the language you want to hear. I think you should aim your critique at yourself – whoever you are – before leveling it at others.
September 30, 2009 at 10:18 pm
Eldar,
For what it’s worth, I think I’ve seen the power of the Holy Spirit when watching people treat one another with love and care in circumstances which, if they’d been relying only on their own power, would have made most people walk away. Nothing I’ve experienced has been more compelling than unconditional love, and if unconditional love isn’t what Jesus did then I think I must have missed something somewhere.
I hope you find what you are looking for.
Nick, I try to remain (mostly) anonymous out of respect for the privacy of people I might mention in my rather personal, reflective blogging. I try to speak as if I were in the home of someone I love and trust, but I’m aware that not all readers would be respectful of that. Perhaps it would be better for me to write my reflections in a paper journal and then dispose of it, but I do value the feedback I get from anonymous and openly-named readers, and the very real friends I have made through being able to communicate anonymously.
September 30, 2009 at 10:22 pm
Song, your anonymity is perfectly understandable. Eldar’s is not.
October 1, 2009 at 3:58 pm
Well, I’ve just been at the same conference as Eldar and Nick and cannot recognise what Eldar describes either.
I also had a very long and interesting conversation at the conference about the ethics of clergy keeping anonymity in blogging and responding to blogs – especially when we knew one another and one of the bloggers was a bishop.
My view then and now is that all priests (indeed all Christians) are called to live with honesty and integrity, as Christ did. And that means openly owning our comments on others’ lives and ministry, particularly when that comment is negative or in disagreement. If we feel it would be damaging to ourselves – e.g.,if I was looking for a job in Nick’s area (Don’t worry, Nick, I’m not. Or at least not for the next 6 or 7 years!), then write your comments in a journal and keep it private. That is the only reason I can think of for anonymity in this context, and it’s not at all Christ-like either. But it is human.
Else, isn’t it just like sending an old fashioned anonymous poison pen letter to all those people (not Nick, not me, and seemingly not Eldar either) who gave days and even months of their time willingly to serve us in different Christ-like ways at the conference?
And we all know what we were told to do with poison pen letters…
October 1, 2009 at 11:51 pm
It seems I owe an apology for the upset I caused and offer an unreserved one, it was not my intention, honest. I think I have not explained myself too well as the resultant comments showed, and that is partly due to it having been late at night and the difficulty in writing long emails etc on an iPhone.
When I quoted +Nicks ‘if the church does not look, sound and feel like the Jesus of the gospels, then we are a fraud and a lie.’ I thought that was actually a very provocative and strong statement and the question must then be asked what does that look, sound and feel like? One area that is missing ‘I believe’ is power.
I wanted to address the question of dunamis power and the Kingdom of God. Jesus not only preached about but demonstrated the Kingdom with power. The gospels are full of it, as well as the book of Acts, he didn’t just teach. Yet often we reduce Jesus to being just a good teacher.
I still hold to Luke 9:1-2 being tied in with the great commission in Matt 28 and that we are to obey all the commands of Jesus that he taught the apostles to obey. Paul made it clear (1 Corinthians 2:4-5)that he din’t use mere words, neither did Stephen or Philip in Acts and many saints down the centuries.
I really don’t see how The Church can look see and feel like the Jesus of the gospels without doing all that he did, which does include signs and wonders, healings and miracles. This is not restricted to the Anglican Church. Let’s also remember the miracles Jesus did were as a man, not as God and he said that we do even greater things. Look also at spiritual gifts in 1 Cor 12.
This is one area we have lost in the main, (I am not a cessasionist as you can probably tell). I have never heard any heavyweight teaching on this either at theological college and I went to a good one, and neither have I heard any teaching on it at the conference let alone demonstrated. I am not trying to tick box’s but would like to hear some teaching on this Nick, maybe next time. Yes we have amazing theologians,compassion, traditions,wealth, buildings etc but I do raise the question of where is the dunamis power being manifested in our ministries.
We live in a post modern culture and we are no longer able to ‘argue’ people into the kingdom of God. The church of England is in crises, lets face it, financially, ethically, theologically, and ecumenically. Yet I remain a committed Anglican and committed to the Church of England, because it is the Lord’s Church and he is not finished with it. Much of +Jacks message was about blessing the mess, and I am part of that mess and have to minister in and through it.
What I really wanted to get across is if we are to be like the Jesus of the gospels then we also need to be moving in the power of the Spirit, demonstrating the Kingdom of God in signs and wonders,miracles and healing as well as looking after the poor and widows and orphans. If not, we are not authentic(in my opinion).
The statement about committees is one we are all faced with whatever our tradition, and the CofE is rife with them. Another committee is not going to be the answer to all our problems.
Why did I not use my real name? Well I never realised it was such a problem as I am not a blogger, and on most other forums people generally use a pseudonym. I noticed someone called ‘song’ replied so didn’t think anything of it. I suppose this is not a forum but a response to a blog, sorry. Maybe it would be good to have some rules or suggestions when it comes to replies (for novices like myself) or when moderated not to include replies that do not include real names.
The Conference was a good one overall and +Jack was an inspiration as was Paula, and +James, and +Graham. We had great variety of theological learning and teaching present as well as many great saints, old and younger.
I hope this leads to some absolution +Nick?
October 2, 2009 at 10:29 am
Eldar, I’ll address the substance of your reply in a separate reply. But let me comment on anonymity.
Whatever the ‘rules’ of the blogosphere, there is a principle involved here. Song has very good reasons for retaining her anonymity. So did one or two of the people I took to task when writing my blog for Fulcrum during the Lambeth Conference. In the latter case, they emailed me separately to explain who they were and why they kept publicly anonymous. In both cases that was understandable – partly to protect others.
However, in principle, it seems to me that we should not do things or say things in secret. I guess I feel strongly about this because I blog publicly and am pretty exposed whenever I write anything. Furthermore, I have never ever not put my name to something I have written: evaluation forms (even when they don’t require a name), surveys, letters, comments on other people’s blogs, etc. If you use a codename, then you should do so from a recognisable email address so that at least the editor (me in this case) can know with whom I am dealing.
OK, that’s me being principled. But I fully understand why some people wish to be anonymous and it would never stop me engaging with them. But I think you need to ask a serious question of yourself as to why you comment anonymously from a conference we were both at without even speaking to me. I have no idea who you are, won’t waste time trying to work it out – and knowing who you are wouldn’t make the slightest difference (within the diocese) other than that I would be able to address my responses more appropriately.
Finally, you don’t need to apologise, nor ask for absolution! I think a blog is about getting stuff out there and starting conversations – the first word rather than the last word. I have no problem blogging robustly and have no problem getting robust responses.
October 2, 2009 at 11:07 am
Eldar, this is Part Two – addressing the substance of your response to me.
“If the church does not look, sound and feel like the Jesus of the gospels, then we are a fraud and a lie.” I didn’t write that to be provocative; I wrote it because I think it is true and what is meant by the ‘Body of Christ’ language. But I think you want to limit what that means. I could have expanded it to say that the priorities of Jesus must be the priorities of the Church … and that leads us to ask not ‘Did Jesus heal people?’, but ‘Which people did Jesus heal?’ Focusing on what you call the ‘power’ is, I think, to miss the point. Let me address by numbering the points for clarity:
1. You say, ‘The Church can look see and feel like the Jesus of the gospels without doing all that he did, which does include signs and wonders, healings and miracles.’ Let’s take that seriously and literally. Given that (clearly) your church is getting this right, please would you tell me which deaf people have had their hearing fully restored, which dumb people now speak, which blind people have had their sight restored, which crippled people are now walking, which dead people have been raised, etc. And what do you say to those (such as those who remained by the side of the Pool of Siloam) who have not been healed? I too believe unswervingly in the power of God to change people’s lives today, but I also have had a ministry of picking up pastorally the casualties of ‘signs and wonders’ churches.
2. Did you not listen to Paula Gooder, James Jones and Jack Nicholls on ‘power’? ‘Power’ was not simply about doing dramatic things; it was about laying down one’s life. The ‘power’ of God is seen in a man hanging on a cross, not being delivered, spared, ‘healed’ or ‘blessed’. The Incarnation is about God coming into the ‘mess’ of the world and not being exempted from what that world could throw at him. The power of God was seen in the raising of Jesus from the dead – and most if not all of those who took up his charge ended their lives prematurely and involuntarily at the point of someone else’s weapon. The exercises of ‘power’ you seem to want extolled have to be understood in the light of a wider theology of power. I think that before criticising ‘the Church’, or, by implication. ‘churches not like yours and clergy not like you’, you need to ask some deeper theological questions and think again about how you read the Scriptures.
3. Is the Church of England in crisis? The Church of England has been considered to be in crisis every day since it began. There was no golden age – however much you might want to do a selective history of it. Born in a compromised mess, its lot has never changed. Nor has any other church. Drop the fantasy and get on with it. I have served in endless evangelical churches where Acts 1-4 has been preached, extolling the power of the early church and drawing a straight line from the page to ‘our’ reality today in England. What about chapter 5 where it all began to fall apart because of money? I don’t think we are in any more crisis than we have ever been; it just serves the dramatic (or self-justifying) purposes of some to paint the present ‘mess’ as the worst. Get real!
4. I guess one of the great blessings of being a bishop is that you get to see the Spirit at work outside and beyond your own prejudiced expectations. I see churches growing that do not look like (I imagine) yours. I also see committed clergy and people laying down their lives, bringing about challenge and change in their communities, serving without hope of reward, quietly setting captives free, opening the eyes of people blinded by hate or guilt to the love and grace of God, opening the ears of people deafened by the noise of the world to the harmonies of the Kingdom of God, etc. The power fo the Spirit of God is seen in more ways than simply ticking the boxes of charismatic worship (very churchy) to prove that (a) ‘we’ are right/ biblical, Spirit-filled or powerful, or (b) ‘our’ church is better than others.
Go for it. Every church has its own unique complexion and will emphasise different elements of what they see in the ministry of the Incarnate Christ. But please do so with some humility and with the recognition that (a) others might be equally Christ-like, (b) others might be getting right what you and your church are not and (c) that other churches might need your prayers rather than your ‘spiritual’ criticism.
I am very happy to continue this conversation either face to face or on here.