Tradition and Flexibility
Easter General Vestry 2011
Last Sunday afternoon, Christchurch Cathedral was filled to capacity for the Enthronement of Archbishop Michel Jackson. At the beginning of the Service, in a ceremony that dates back to medieval times, the new Archbishop approaches the Cathedral and knocks on the door. Archbishop Michael veritably struck the door of Christchurch Cathedral with his pastoral staff and the sound reverberated around the Cathedral. I turned to Rev Martha Waller, Curate of Raheny and remarked, ‘That sounds like a man who means business.’ That sense of purpose ran through the whole of that service: in his invitation to Archbishop Martin not only to attend but also to read the Gospel; his decision not just to invite the representatives of other Christian Churches but also leaders of the Jewish and Islamic communities in Dublin. It also came through in the sermon he preached that day.
In a ceremony firmly rooted in the traditions of the Church of Ireland, the Archbishop began:
Flexibility is the companion of tradition, although it does not often come across like that. We must, of course, show appropriate respect for the good things which become ours through inheritance. Yet we cannot simply maintain those things as if their very maintenance is an end in itself and, therefore, constitutes a job well done. In each generation, it is our responsibility to bring the tradition forward to a new place, to make of it a fresh expression of God’s presence and God’s power, living and working with quite different people and in quite new situations. In this way, the tradition develops the confidence to act in ways appropriate to changed and changing circumstances. This it must do with sure confidence if it is to be a tradition for our time.
The tradition of the Church of Ireland is a living plant, with its roots in our history, growing and developing towards the future. As a young Bishop of Derry & Raphoe, the then Bishop Robin Eames said, in the Priorities Report, ‘Tradition is the servant of the Church not its master.’
Each generation of the Church both receives the tradition and puts its own stamp on that tradition. This is a process that every generation engages in. We see it in the line of editions of the Prayer Book from the original Prayer Book of 1549 down to our current Prayer Book of 2004. We see it in our development of hymnody from the first hymnbooks down to our current hymn book. But these are all continuing processes of taking the best of the past and combining it with the best of each generation. The Liturgical Committee of the Church of Ireland has for example produced a new order for Holy Communion for use when there are a number of children present which we used for the first time on Easter Day. The Church has also announced the beginning of a process of producing a supplement for our current hymn book, whose content was finalised over ten years ago that will reflect some of the developments since that date.
The Archbishop while stressing the need for the tradition to speak to each generation also warns against ignoring the riches of that tradition. So later on in his sermon he says:
St John’s Gospel shows us something else, that tradition does not and cannot perpetuate itself on its own terms. It must be subjected to changing circumstances and give an account of itself for the greater good. Kicking over the tradition indiscriminately and uncritically, however, is far from helpful – to yourself or indeed to anyone else. It leads to repetitive immaturity.
And so I have often said that I have never seen myself as changing the tradition of any Parish I have been in as broadening it.
The Parish Development Programme in which we participated sees as one of its functions as encouraging this dialogue between the tradition and our contemporary situation. How do we communicate, how do we express the unchanging values of the Gospel in our own generation? In a very different social context, how do we express and experience community in an era of 24 hour news, in an era when the work place (for those who have one) is far more stressed, in an era of social networks such as Facebook that have made community a far more fragile and ill defined concept. This is the era in which young families are raising their children, in which our children are growing up. The Church ignores these developments at its peril.
In five years we will be celebrating the 150th Anniversary of the Consecration of our Parish Church of St Mary. It was a Church built for its time, reflecting many of the social, theological and liturgical norms of its day. It predated the Disestablishment of the Church of Ireland, the foundation of this State. When it was built the wife was legally a chatel of her husband, women had no role in politics, in the Church, in medicine and the other professions. It was an age of deference. We would have sung the words of Mrs Alexander, ‘the rich man in his castle the poor man at his gate, God gave them each their station and ordered their estate.’ The side door of the Church did not access a Parish Centre but was rather the door through which the family of the Earl of Howth entered and left the Church. Your Rector would have been a member of the gentry, not the son of an engineering apprentice in the Austin car works in Birmingham.
As we approach that date we need to not only look at the external fabric of our Church building but, of even greater importance, we need to reflect on the very nature of the Church itself, how we use our building, how we express our worship, how we develop our sense of community, community with each other, community with God.
I would ask you to share with me between now and 2016 in this dialogue between the tradition we have inherited and the evolving situation in which we find ourselves called to witness to the Gospel in the time and place in which God has placed us.