The Church Of Ireland
Press Release

It is my great pleasure once again to welcome you all - elected members, visitors and observers to this beautiful Synod Hall for our Annual meeting. We are grateful to the Dean and to the parishioners for making us so welcome.

I turn first to some Diocesan matters, many of which will be discussed further as we debate the reports that lie before us. This year has seen several changes. It is sad indeed to record the death of Bishop Jack Duggan, a friend and pastor of clergy and laity alike in these Dioceses. He was a wise man who wore his scholarship lightly, with a deep knowledge of these Dioceses and people. Likewise, we have lost another who knew the church in the West so well in the person of Reverend Hugh Thompson, former Diocesan Secretary and auxiliary priest who shared with us so much of his time and talent. We extend the sympathy of this Synod to Mary Duggan and Mary Thompson and their families.

Archdeacon Stratford has announced his retirement after 44 years in Ballisodare Group of Parishes. Ordained in 1954, after two short curacies, he moved to the West in 1956, a year before the present speaker was born! We thank him for his immense contribution and wish him and Phyllis a long and happy retirement in Mullingar. Canon Alfie Mitchell has also retired from sterling service in Skreen Union and we are so glad to be keeping him in the Diocese as one of our much valued team of auxiliary and retired priests. We could not begin to function without these willing people, and I would like also to place on record my thanks to Revd Doris Clements, Revd Malcolm Graham, Revd Jack Heaslip, Revd Maureen Ryan and other clergy from neighbouring Dioceses who help out from time to time. At the time of writing, Revd Philip Heak is moving to Kilkenny to hold a central post in youth work of the Dioceses of Cashel and Ossory. We thank him too for his work with us and send good wishes for the future.

I am proud of our new additions to the Dioceses. Provost Patrick Towers brings a wealth of experience and originality to Galway and Dean Alistair Grimason likewise to Tuam after a long vacancy under the loving care of Revd Maureen Ryan. Aean Ferguson is moving to Skreen very shortly and he and Mary are already experiencing a really warm welcome.

This United Diocese, although it extends over such a wide area, is very much akin to a Team Ministry, with the Bishop as both captain and player - and very often substitute, too! I like this model, and I think it bodes well for a flexible rural ministry in the future which we shall surely need to find. Clergy need to be well anchored in their parishes in the traditional way, but to have a chain that extends beyond their parochial boundaries. We have, as it happens, a very able team of clergy, with a multitude of talents, and these ought not to be locked up too tightly within parish boundaries. I hope that the coming years will see parishes increasingly as overlapping circles, where particular talents may be brought to bear in the Dioceses as a whole. The same is true also of the laity; again a multitude of talents which we have hardly begun to recognise, and which ought not to be too localised in their expression. This is a management issue, really. We certainly have the resources; we need to work on their best deployment in changing times.

But it is not merely a management problem. In addition to management, there is the question of education. Clergy -including bishops- and laity alike need to continue in Christian education and to be equipped for sharing in a pattern of ministry whose goal it is to involve every member. The Diocesan Board of Mission is taking this very enthusiastically as I am sure you will hear shortly in their report. These are exciting times, and there is no cause for despair if we focus on God and are open to new things.

Management and education only make sense if they are part of a greater reality of which we must be always conscious. I refer of course to the church. Although we must necessarily focus on local issues, we must not lose sight of the real meaning and mission of the church, and it is about this that I wish to speak today. In any case, this is a Millennium year, when we have been celebrating this powerful and significant anniversary of the birth of Christ, and it would seem to be appropriate to try to speak about the church he came to build.

Questions about the nature of the church have always been asked, as each new generation has wondered about her role - indeed her survival - in society. Now, in plural and post-modern society, these problems are to the fore once more as church and church attendance are often seen simply as options in a world of many choices, to be available and on call when wanted, but not to be the core of commitment and discipleship, still less regular denominational worship. So yet again, the church has something of an identity crisis, and it is this that forces us back to the drawing board, not I hope to redesign but to ask whether there was something pertinent in the original design that we could do well to look at again. By contrast, in our conscientious struggle to do and design things for God, we often forget to look properly at what He first has done and designed for us. God surely is a God of provision, of pro-vision, and we need to see what he has provided.

How can we communicate these fundamentals in an understandable and truthful way? Too often we have appealed to who is right and who is wrong, as one debate after another comes our way. Claim and counter-claim, document and counter document have occupied so much of our time as we painfully slog our way forward; sometimes backwards too! When feelings run very deep, we sometimes forget our Christianity in our Crusades. I have to confess that I am growing weary of this, wondering always whether there is not already in place something broader, fairer, more inclusive - if we had the wit and generosity of spirit to see it. But of course God is still working all the while, there are so many people not in our churches who are yet being touched and inspired by the Holy Spirit, by life and work of Jesus Christ, needing nourishment of word and sacrament. But as so many look (if they look at all) at the division and all the argument, they must (and do) wonder what it's all about and whether it's all worth it - indeed whether there's anything in it at all.

So I ask again, How can we communicate these fundamentals about the church in an understandable and truthful way? A great number of books and articles have been written on models of the church, but they do not seem to be that understandable or accessible to everyone. The church is described as Institution, Sacrament, Mystical Communion, Servant, Herald, Prophet and so on. But I suggest to you that in most people's minds, concepts such as these don't really connect; this sort of expert talk can so easily become the gnostic property of the academic and churchy world, even if it is based on biblical concepts..

What I really think we need is a story of the church. People listen to stories. Stories respect diversity whilst still conveying the truth; surely this is why Jesus spoke in parables so much. We need a narrative, under which we all stand, which we all understand (albeit differently), of what the church is in its primary architecture and design.

Put simply, I think we do have a narrative of the church which is often neglected. It is in the story of Peter, the witness of Jesus' life and death, resurrection and ascension, and the witness of the work of the Holy Spirit. Peter; fisherman turned disciple and apostle. The scriptures are common to us all, so I turn now to the bible account of St.Peter. From the New Testament, I would like to share some aspects of Peter's life story, exploring them but still leaving them essentially as story, and invite you to consider their relevance to the church today - to our internal and interdenominational debates. I hope what I say will be accessible; surely if we can identify with anyone in the bible, we can identify with Peter.

The Sunday before last, we heard in church St. Mark's version of the famous story of Jesus at Caesarea Philippi. It is a controversial passage which has been variously interpreted, but it is part of the story of Peter, and I can only share with you how it strikes me today. It is a hinge point in the whole of the Gospel as the shadow of the cross begins to fall, and the cost of discipleship begins to emerge. Jesus asks the disciples who people say that He is. They reply, 'Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, still others, one of the prophets.' They don't really know, faced with choices, none of which seems quite to fit the bill. But Jesus presses the point, 'what about you?'. And Peter in a flash of inspiration replies, 'You are the Christ'. At the parallel point in Matthew's Gospel, Peter says, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God'. Jesus replies, 'Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah for this was not revealed to you by man but by my father in heaven'. So this is a sovereign gift of insight from God, a recognition of the same truth by Jesus and Peter, and Jesus goes on to say that it is on the rock of this confession, this recognition, that the church will be built. So I ask you, setting aside history and denomination, Do you confess that Jesus Christ is the Son of God? If so, you are a part of the church he came to build.

But this story has a sequel which is revealing and disturbing. Jesus goes on to explain that he must go to Jerusalem, and suffer. Peter, the man blessed with such beautiful insight says, in effect, Surely not, Lord, not you... You of all people. And Jesus shockingly replies, Get behind me, Satan! Peter, one moment is blessed with supreme insight, and the next confused and blind. One moment he is profoundly right; the next moment profoundly wrong. Looking back at my faith, and the faith of the churches, I can see the truth of this.

A few days later, Jesus takes Peter and others up a mountain, and Jesus is transfigured before them, a brilliant revelation as he talks with Moses (symbolising the Law) and Elijah (the prophets). This seems to Peter to be so lovely, and so right, that he wants to stop the story, stop the winding of the film and freeze the frame right there. He wants a refuge of perfection, away from the sordid streets and human pain of the valleys far below. Once more, Peter is deeply right in seeing and experiencing who Jesus is, but deeply wrong in his understanding of the full implications. He sees, but he does not understand fully. This is our dilemma, but it is the truth. We know in part; how could it be otherwise? If we could learn to be comfortable with this uncomfortable truth, how much happier we should be, and how more easily we could love and accept each other! In the transfiguration story, a cloud comes (just as well really) and when it has passed Jesus is alone once again. Together, they have to come down off the mountain of vision, down to normal life, to the poor, the suffering, the dying, down even to the cross. But they will carry this vision of transformation always, and carry it into these sordid places. This is the design of the mission of the church. It is also the substance and hope of our prayers; that they find their way back from the foot of the mountain to the heights. In all denominations and none, we pray.

Looking at Peter, I find that getting something wrong (as he often does) does not wreck everything; indeed in the face of mystery, it is part of his learning - and ours, too. Peter's great gift seems to be in this - in his transparent honesty and directness, he is so truly alive. He can be himself, and so be educated into becoming his true self. He seems to have a hold on some continuous thread that never quite breaks, however much strained.

So now I want to ask what this thread might be. One thread is obviously located in the will of God; Jesus chose Peter, full stop. But what did God choose him to be? A man of faith, whose faith would be tested almost unbearably. It will be denied by his actions and denials, but it will not ultimately fail. So also the church will live, indeed find new strength by being broken down - if the thread of faith that finds mercy and resurrection is not broken with it.

With the question of faith in mind, I turn to another Peter story. Shortly before Jesus is so brutally put to death, he says to Peter, 'Simon, Simon, Satan has desired to sift you as wheat'. A chilling prediction of being broken and disintegrated. This is the nature of evil - the separation and disintegration of what belongs together. It's what makes people say that their life is in pieces, when bad news leaves them shredded. It is what lies behind our disunity, within and without denominations; part of the story of the church and indeed the church in this land; broken pieces, seemingly impossible to reassemble, even to know what goes where (or if it goes anywhere at all), and uncertain as to what glue would be needed to connect them! Jesus says that the shepherd will be struck down and the sheep will scatter, Peter among them. But, paradoxically, therein lies our hope. It is in the striking of the shepherd that the sheep are ultimately gathered in. The cross and the Eucharist speak powerfully of brokenness and death, yet these bring healing and life. If what always belonged to Christ is broken, it will yet be united in him.

What has this to do with faith? People so often forget what Jesus goes on to say. Simon, Simon, Satan has desired to sift you as wheat, but I have prayed that your faith may not fail. And indeed his faith does not fail. Like Judas, Peter will betray his Lord, but unlike Judas his hope is not totally crushed; he believes in forgiveness and a hopes for a new start. He hopes and believes. Thus the church lives on, chastened, fallible, corrigible, but the unfailing fact of faith and the hope of healing will bring us home. Faith and hope - these are the beginnings of the glue of the reassembly of the church. But the greatest is love.

And so to another Peter story. A story of breakfast by the lakeside when the conversation turns to love. After the boasting (Lord... I will never leave you!), and the three fold denial (I do not know him) while Jesus is tortured and given a trumped up trial, after the breakdown and bitter weeping, after the discovery of the empty tomb and seeing Jesus alive but not quite knowing what to make of it, after all this, Peter has gone back to the thing he started with - fishing. Fishing for fish, mind you! A retrograde step you might say, knowing what a commission he carries, what resurrection hope he harbours somewhere in his soul, and what mountain top visions he has seen. But in the chill of dawn a distant figure on the beach calls to the fishing party. When they haul in so many fish, the figure in a flash is recognised for who he truly is; Peter rushes headlong in faith and hope through the shallows. But it is love that really makes him run. Love has not been destroyed by guilt and shame; rather its true quality has been revealed. And after breakfast, Jesus speaks to him of love. 'Peter, do you truly love me? Feed my lambs'. There it is again. Love for Jesus does not mean resting in holy comfort at the top of the mountain, but carrying the feed out to the flock. The necessary and lovely refuge of intimacy with God must issue in service. The church must be like this too. Christ's love compels us. So I ask you: 'Do you love Jesus? Does love compel you? Does it make you run?'. Then you belong to his church.

There is another crucial stage of Peter's story, of his witnessing of the work of God, that must be mentioned. We are now into the Acts of the Apostles or, as some have said, the Acts of the Holy Spirit. Peter is the first on the list of those who saw the Ascension of Christ. This Ascension completes the circuit of God's love, fused with us at Bethlehem and leaving us waiting for a universal fusion at Pentecost. All is in place after the Ascension, but there is one thing yet lacking - power from God. Peter and the embryonic church are told to wait for this.

So we come at last to Pentecost, called by many the birthday of the church (incidentally, surely the day when we should give each other presents). This day remains the most moving vision of the ideal church, and a constant rebuke to our divisions. Peter once again is at the heart of it all. There is a gathering of the God-fearing - all are together in one place, and all share one faith. And then comes the gust of power that transforms them entirely - and in their entirety. Would the power have come without the faith in place, and without the gathering of the faithful? It seems to me that we have the faith in place, but we lack the gathering of the whole family of God..

This is why I haunted by the word 'all' - hardly the most spooky word, I admit. But it occurs again and again in this second chapter of Acts. All were gathered, all were filled, all understood in their own language. I ask you now, What would this all mean today? Two thousand years ago, Pentecost was a meeting of the faithful of all nations. In this third Millennium, I put it to you how much would be achieved by meeting of all denomi-nations? Pentecost was a coming together of a Diaspora that historically and religiously belonged together. Jews who were God-fearing. What could a gathering of God-fearing Christians achieve; we, in this country, who belong together? Notice that the gathering precedes the divine power, and the mutual understanding. The deep inner unity is spontaneously discovered in worship that is inspired by the Holy Spirit of God; this sort of unity is not conditional on us, neither is it contrived nor regulated by us, nor dependent upon dogma or doctrine. It seems to be given to the church when all who belong together, gather. Put it this way: 'Would you really start the party before everyone had gathered? First the gathering, then the Divine power and all this comes before Peter preaches his sermon. He uses the scriptures to interpret what he sees happening. And according to Peter, this was always part of the plan, the design and architecture of God.

And look! Though they might have been strangers and speak in different languages, they understand each other and the things of God, deeply. The result according to Acts is that all were devoted to fellowship and teaching, everyone was filled with awe, everyone was together and had everything in common and they gave to anyone who had need. This inclusive human gathering of the faithful, yet anointed by God, issued in the true church, enjoying true and sincere fellowship, breaking bread together and praying together. Is it any wonder that God added to their number daily those who were being saved? I put it to you: 'If God is not doing this for us now, why is he not?'

What a contrast Pentecost is to the individualistic and Godless tower of Babel, a monument of human pride that leaves people profoundly confused. But Pentecost reverses all that as all gather under the one God. In our day, can we possibly expect real unity if we demand uniformity, or true fellowship if we demand conformity? Is it rather that we will find unity only when the non-uniform all gather? Should we rather be scouring the highways for unlikely guests at the feast? No one will lose their true identity by this sort of unity. It will not need to be defended, it will be given, as it should be.

Peter's human involvement in the midst of Pentecost seems to tell me that the church must meet and wait, wait upon God. The meeting we can achieve ourselves, if we will sit lightly on our prejudice, but we must still wait for the power of God to transform us, to unite us at the deep internal level of true understanding, and inspire a worship that will unite us still further. This will draw others towards us as an uncontrived consequence of our God-centred and true fellowship.

Peter witnesses these events and comes to understand most deeply that the validation, the diagnosis of the true church is the presence of the Holy Spirit. A little later in the Acts of the Apostles, Peter finds gentiles experiencing the Holy Spirit in the same way that he did. Initially, he cannot bear it because it goes against all that he has been taught. Peter, now a firm and convinced Christian, mark you, cannot handle the thought of God working where he ought not to, and certainly beyond the horizons of Peter's own expectations or sympathy. Yet Peter's great gift remains; he recognises God, just as he did with Jesus. Later, with wonderful humility, he admits that he was wrong about the gentiles, and sheepishly remarks 'who was I to think that I could oppose God?' I put it to you: do you recognise God at work in other denominations or none? Then you are the church.

Well, there are many other stories of Peter and you may like to contemplate them as indicators of how the church is, and might be. I have remarked on several highlights of Peter's long story, his insight, his gifts, his mistakes, his corrections. If they apply to any one of us, they apply to all of us.

I close with some verses from Psalm 133 which I heard in Glenstal the night before last:

How good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell together in unity!
For there the Lord bestows his blessing, even life for evermore. Amen.