Lecture by the Archbishop of Canterbury at Portsmouth Cathedral

28 May 2002

I am grateful to the Bishop for his welcome, and I want to say how delighted I am to be paying this visit to the diocese and to give this lecture.

I have entitled the lecture ‘The Renewal of the Church in the Spirit of Pentecost’, because for the last eleven years as Archbishop of Canterbury it has been my deep desire to encourage the Church in its mission and life. There is nothing I want more than the renewal of our beloved Church and to see it fulfilling all the promise offered in the gospel. It is very clear to me that so much good work is going on, so much energy is being given to maintaining church life and so much sacrificial work marks the activity of our Church today. You and I should be in no doubt that there is much to encourage us. Yet sometimes clergy especially feel that encouragement is in short supply. As one priest told me: ‘I feel at times that the real patron saint of the modern church is Sisyphus. We are pushing the proverbial boulder up the hill and it gets harder and harder. We never seem to reach the top.’ I can sympathise with that feeling of heaviness. We may even echo the words of the woman expecting her tenth child who tells her obstetrician: ‘Doctor, I am looking for a blessing that is not in disguise!’

In the 37th chapter of Ezekiel there occurs the mysterious passage that recounts Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of dry bones. It is one of the passages of scripture with which we are so familiar that we may actually fail to probe the full depths of its meaning. It is a passage that seems to be increasingly relevant to our day even though two-and-a-half-thousand years separate us from Ezekiel’s time. Many of the people of Israel had been sent into exile in Babylon. They longed to return to their homeland. Ten years had passed and it began to dawn on some of them that they may never return home. It was a frightful prospect. It was in this context that Ezekiel was given a vision of a valley where a battle had taken place long ago. Bones were everywhere; picked clean by animals and birds. It was a picture of desolation and misery. And as Ezekiel looks out over this morbid scene, Yahweh asks him: ‘Ezekiel, can these bones live?’

It is fascinating that it is God who asks the question. It was really Ezekiel’s question to ask. It is your question and mine also. ‘Is it really possible that things can be different?’ And Ezekiel wisely volleys the question back into God’s court: ‘You know, Lord’, he responds. God then tells Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones. He does so and they miraculously come together with a great rattling noise; they unite and become a recognisable army once again. One can imagine his joy as the prophecy of the renewal of the people of God begins to be fulfilled.

But there is a problem - there is no life in this new army. Sure, the army is recognisable - but there is no difference between this army and, we might say, the stone statues of warriors in China that tourists go to see today. Now, we must ask, why is there a pause here? Why shouldn’t the vision of ‘dry bones’ immediately go on to the indwelling of the Spirit and the bestowal of new life? I believe the intended message to the Israelites is this: ‘There are already a lot of you in captivity. Many of you are very capable people; you are taking responsibility for your life, your worship, your families and community. But structural change is not enough. More - much more - is required. You need God's power.’

And so Ezekiel is told to move into a second stage: ‘Prophesy to the wind’, he is commanded. Jews would have instantly understood this as a reference to the Spirit. Indeed, the parallel with the creation narrative in Genesis 1 is palpably clear: the ‘wind’ - ‘Ruach’ in the Hebrew - moves over the waters. Here, the wind - the ‘Ruach’ - fills the bodies with life and they become a mighty army and arise. The passage would have been understood as a sign of hope. Yahweh will bless his people: ‘Do not fear. You are still my people and I will bring you home again.’

The passage is very relevant to our day, our church and our mission. In a spiritual sense our church - all churches in the western world - are in a situation which we may call ‘exilic’. It was from the same exilic context experienced by Ezekiel that the writer of Psalm 137 cries, ‘How can we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?’ We look around us and see that our culture appears to be rapidly leaving behind its religious landmarks and seems more interested in distraction and amusement than in engaging with real questions. Of course I am generalising, because it is evident that so many good things are happening, as I said earlier, and people are still being called to faith. But we do occasionally feel that we ought to be doing more about it and we do long for God to bless our efforts.

Things begin to make sense when we realise that the Church has always been an exilic body. We have been so accustomed to being comfortable for so long that we don’t know how to react to the challenge presented to us by a society professing itself increasingly secular and uninterested in organised religion.

At this point I must acknowledge that there have been more books written and more speeches made on this challenge than I can possibly refer to. I am reminded of the preacher who entitled a series of addresses on complex issues like the problem of pain with the intriguing title: ‘Unscrewing the Unscrutable’ - a clever title, even if the adjective is actually ‘inscrutable’. I feel I am about to do the same in the short time available to me. The question that I want to address is: ‘How may we today arise as a mighty army?’

I believe we must begin, as Ezekiel did, by dreaming dreams and seeing a few visions. It begins with hunger and therefore with spirituality and with an urgent desire to know the living God and be known by him. Forgive me for being anecdotal, but in my fortieth year of ordained ministry I know from experience that growth arises from men and women who hunger for change, who are still dissatisfied with the mediocre and humdrum, and who still long for growth in their congregations and community life. From my many visits to much poorer countries I can tell you freely that real growth is not hindered by lack of money or structured church life or even persecution. Indeed, it is often the case that situations of extreme difficulty and need can become catalysts for growth.

I recall my three visits to Sudan where poverty, persecution and privation of all kinds are terrible blights on that wonderful country, and yet where I was humbled by the incredible devotion and love of our Lord which I witnessed there. I recall a Eucharist in the middle of the country; thousands of people were there - many had made long journeys lasting up to several days to get there. As I began to preach, I noticed an elderly Sudanese priest pull from his yellowing cassock a battered bible covered in polythene. As I preached, I noticed this man making notes in the margins of his beloved bible. Later I asked the bishop who he was and I was introduced to him. His name was Peter and he was the Archdeacon of the area. Through his ministry hundreds of churches had been founded. The secret? There was no secret. He was a totally committed man, totally given to the gospel and totally driven by his love of God in Christ our Lord. He was not a learned man - to be honest Peter was semi-literate and had never been to college. But in his presence one sensed the fragrance of Christ - an indefinable holiness.

Now, we must always avoid the temptation to think that great things only happen miles away from were we are; that they occurred back then in biblical times or they occur over there in places like Sudan and elsewhere. No! They occur here and now too - when we start to think the unthinkable, dare to do the impossible, dream the undreamable.

It may begin in small ways. Take that tiny church in my diocese of Canterbury where only ten or so people used to attend regularly. To be sure it is a small village. But the ten people started to believe in their hearts that they could never be any more than ten, so their horizons started to shrink. They felt they had nothing to offer anybody; their job, they believed, was to keep the worship going - that was all. And things remained like that until Peggy joined them. Peggy was already in her sixties - a jolly, outgoing lady with a happy marriage and therefore an obliging husband. She suggested, ‘Let's start a Sunday school’, and they were happy to let her get on with it. The Sunday school grew. Peggy then said, ‘Let's start a fortnightly prayer and study meeting.’ And it started in the daytime with several ladies gathering and then after some months was transferred to a weekday evening and some men joined them. Peggy then said, ‘Have you not noticed that the parents of the children come to collect them at 11 o'clock? Let's invite them in for the final 15 minutes.’ So a family service started. Before a year was up the congregation was growing. And then the bishop regrettably informed them, ‘Sorry, but you can't have a parish priest every week now - you can only have him once-a-fortnight.’ The people panicked, wondering how they would survive without a regular parish priest. Someone brightly suggested, ‘Why don't we ask Peggy to run a family service on the alternate Sunday?’ Good idea, everyone agreed. Within a year there were more people at Peggy's service than that led by the visiting parish priest. And then the bishop said, ‘Sorry, you can only have a priest once a month.’ The people then said, ‘That's alright, we have Peggy!’ So Peggy obligingly carried on. After a while, a group of people came to the bishop and said, ‘Our real priest is Peggy - but she is not ordained. We would like you to consider ordaining her.’ Peggy was 69 years of age by then. I ordained her at the age of 70 as our first local non-stipendiary deacon. Her congregation still continues to grow. She has astounded us by her simple willingness to be available to God, and her refusal to allow anything to stand in her way.

You know, there are plenty of Peggys and Peters in the Church who have resources to offer and talents to use. They remind us of God's ability to surprise us.

If hunger is my first word, then ‘letting go’ is my second point. I often say to clergy ‘do fewer things better.’ Ministerial life today is impossibly full. You will experience burnout and spiritual fatigue if you simply cram more and more things into a busy life. When you are too busy, prayer, bible study, and private reflection become the unfortunate casualties of busyness. Bishop John Taylor makes the following observation in his wonderful book The Go-Between God: ‘I have often heard of projects being stopped for lack of money, but I have never heard of a project being stopped for lack of prayer or insufficient reflection being given to it.’ It is a sober truth.

So we need a proper evaluation and inventory of parish life. What is going on in our church and diocese? What is effective or ineffective? Where is God blessing at the present moment and where is there sterility and lifelessness? The first part of Ezekiel’s vision focused on the bodies in the valley of dry bones. God was doing something, but the miracle was only half finished. As I look at a lot of church life today there are many good things going on, but there are so many cases where resources are being spread too thinly and too much energy is being dissipated.

Let me give another illustration - this time from a different diocese. Harry had been the vicar of a working-class estate for four years. There was a lot of life in his parish and church. A small band of enthusiastic people did everything, and if the truth was faced, it had to be confessed that there was simply too much going on. One day it dawned on Harry that if there was one thing that his church was especially appreciated for it was its ministry to the very elderly and the bereaved. Harry met with his church council and after much prayer and discussion they decided that for the next two years they would focus on the needs of the bereaved and channel energy and what resources they had into that area of ministry. They decided that certain meetings should close or meet less frequently. Harry then prepared literature designed to inform people of the work of the church, prayer cards and helpful literature for families. He visited assiduously and started special meetings for widows and widowers. Gradually the congregation grew, because lonely people knew Harry cared. When I preached for him some years ago, I found a large congregation on a tough council estate.

But ‘letting go’ is not simply a matter of doing fewer things better. It goes deeper than that. There has to be a spiritual ‘letting go’ too. I had a profound experience of this myself when I was a parish priest in Durham. In my early days there I had to do everything. There were very few lay people I could turn to for help. I recall one wretched Saturday evening when I had the parish magazine still to print out on a very erratic Gestetner machine and the bulletin to finish and I desperately needed to go over the end of the address for the following day. And, to be honest, I wanted to watch ‘Match of the Day’! I recall standing in the middle of my office wondering where to start, when I suddenly found myself thinking, ‘Whose work is this anyway? Isn't it God’s? If so, why am I doing his worrying for him? Where is the joy of service? Let God do the worrying! It is my job to do my work for him to the best of my ability!’

What I am describing to you was a mental and spiritual transaction. I handed the work over to God. It is not my work to worry about this or that - my work is to trust God and to give my heart to Him. The great thing was that with this new mental attitude, the magazine was finished, the bulletin completed, the sermon done to my satisfaction, and I watched some of ‘Match of the Day’!

My third reflection is that renewal of the Church in the Spirit of Pentecost takes us directly to God's love in Christ, which we call mission. And here we have to reconsider our understanding of the Church. Too often, people think of ‘church’ as an institution whose existence has to do with my kind of worship; whose business is wrapped up in, as someone once said famously years ago, ‘keeping the rumour of God alive.’

But if we are only in the business of rumours, we can do better things with our time. Pentecost can be said to be the birthday of the Church, and that means being sent out by the Holy Spirit with a message. David Bosch, in his great book Transforming Mission writes, ‘Mission has its origin in the heart of God. God is a fountain of sending love. That is the truest source of mission. It is impossible to penetrate deeper still: there is mission because God loves people.’ And because God loves, he sends. He sent Jesus; and Jesus gathered his friends around him - and we are sent out with that same message of love. Thus Jurgen Moltmann states simply, ‘There is church because there is mission - and not vice versa.’ Moltmann actually takes it further than that. The Church is not the primary focus of God's concern. Mission has to do with God's kingdom. The Church exists to promote the values of the kingdom, and therefore mission is not some add-on, done only when we have finished the jumble sale, the PCC and the Sunday School, but it is the very heart of what the Church is about.

We must also rid ourselves of a view of miraculous mission which flows nebulously from those who have discovered the Holy Grail of spiritual power. I used to have on my bookshelves a book which described a mission in Africa, where a certain British missionary went to a particular country and everywhere he went people were healed and converted. The book described how he was able to speak in tongues and preach in native languages. Well, I do not dismiss the miraculous in missionary activity, but we must guard against simplistic interpretations which in the end make mission the prerogative of a few gifted people and not the work of us all. And in this regard I would like to say how very encouraged I am by all that I have seen and heard of the innovative work that you are doing in this diocese through your ‘Stepping Out’ programme in this your anniversary year. This is a prime example of the shared work of mission that I am talking about; the mission of the Church involves us all.

So if there is one key discovery for us to make about mission, it is this open secret that every Christian is a missionary, and that mission stems from the fact that each one of us has the capacity to serve Christ and to speak for Christ, because we love Christ.

We must start by demythologising mission. It is, in D T Niles’ great definition, ‘one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread.’ And it does not mean that we have to become extra-spiritual, over-pious or terribly earnest. Indeed, the more natural we are the better. It may begin by being proud of our church and speaking of what goes on there. We will look for opportunities to show the love of God in our actions. A friend of mine who is a Director of a leading Investment Bank in London is not slow to draw his faith into his work. He told me that it affects his integrity as a Christian at work. He must have the highest standards of propriety. But he went on to tell me that when a colleague, whose wife has leukaemia, told him of their anxieties and fears, he expressed to his friend his willingness to support him and mentioned that he would pray for his wife. A deep friendship developed, and gradually that friendship drew both husband and wife into a faith that lead to healing and to membership in the Church.

Last week in our House of Bishops, we discussed one of the most important areas of mission facing the Church today - namely our concern for young people. The good news is that the Church of England now employs more youth officers than the statutory authorities in the land. The bad news is that we are not good at holding young people in our churches, and that means that our Church’s average age will steadily rise. I could prove that by one simple action tonight. I could say to you, ‘Put up your hand if you came to faith before the age of 25.’ I know that 90% of hands would be raised.

Now, why don't we hold on to young people? Or, to put it another way, why do young people think the Church is no place for them? I can only mention a few points: because they don't feel welcome, because the worship does not include them, because they feel ill at ease.

But that is to concentrate on the Church instead of listening to young people and learning from them. It seems to me that there are two other important reasons why they don't come or stay, and both reasons have to do with mission rather than Church. Firstly, because young people crave adventure. They long for something that is going to draw their idealism into a passionate commitment that is going to make a difference. Why is it that young people are drawn to environmental and ecological concerns today and that practically every school has projects to do with saving water or preserving our environment? Perhaps it is because in the eyes of many it is the last remaining ideology young people can commit themselves to and know that they can make a difference. You and I must find ways to tell them that important though ecology is - and every Christian should be concerned because this is God’s world - the fact that God calls us to join Him in His great adventure of salvation is far more important. We must help young people to discover the tingle there is in being an authentic Christian.

There is a second point: young people do not want adventure alone, they seek service; they want to commit themselves to something greater than themselves and serve that goal. They seek something which makes their lives worthwhile. They are seeking meaning.

Surely the Church has something to offer in this respect, since we understand ourselves as being in the business of encouraging people to serve. That does not necessarily mean ordination, by the way. It means serving our Lord in whatever way we can - and there are numerous ways in which young people can do this.

There are so many other points I would have liked to offer you this evening, but I am conscious that it is all too easy to lay extra burdens on busy priests and ministers and lay people. I could easily have spoken of ways in which we are being called to develop new ways of being Church; or I could have given you some examples of what new things are happening in this country and abroad; or, again, I could have spoken of the connection between worship and growth.

But the point of the Ezekiel story is that it is not about us, but about God; it is not fixated on what we need to do, but what God is prepared to offer. And so my final words are really about ‘celebrating’. One of the greatest fruits of the Spirit is joy - and it is joyful people and rejoicing Churches that are more likely to find their ways into the kind of renewal that God longs for us all to know and share.

Four years ago my wife and I paid an official visit to Luxembourg and visited the beautiful town of Echternach, where Willibrord the famous missionary to Germany and the Low Countries is buried. We were told of the famous dancing procession of Echternach, which takes place on the first Tuesday following Pentecost every year. Thousands gather in the Abbey and, led by the bands, then the clergy, then young people and followed by everyone else, the entire crowd dance through the streets of the town. No one really knows when it began or why it started, but it is associated with Pentecostal joy and praise at what God did through his servant Willibrord and what he continues to do today.

I would love to see a recapturing of praise, joy and laughter at the mystery of God’s love. Jurgen Moltmann speaks in his book The Source of Life of another medieval custom of Easter laughter, which was a way of translating Easter joy into earthly jokes and fun. Moltmann explains, ‘The Easter laughter springs from the completely unexpected and totally surprising universal turning point which God initiated when he raised Jesus - the Jesus whom the powers of this world had crucified…But the laughter at this turn of events, which already fills the community of the risen Christ here and now, will one day ring through the whole universe.’ And so it will. When we consider the brokenness of our world and the huge problems the human family faces, the Christian message of God’s love given in Christ is surely reason for celebration and laughter. Paraphrasing Psalm 126 we can say, ‘Then our mouth will be filled with laughter and our tongue with shouts of joy.’

It often amuses me that our new liturgies grudgingly allow us to say ‘Alleluia’ from Easter to Pentecost when, for some inexplicable reason we are not encouraged to do so thereafter! But praise and joy should be the natural habitat of all Christians, as we celebrate the wonder of God’s love in the Eucharist - which means ‘thanksgiving’ - and as we offer to the world a gift which will never perish and which gives such hope for tomorrow. Little wonder the first Christians are recorded in Acts 2 as ‘breaking bread in their homes and eating together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favour of the people.’ Little wonder that such joy then led to the following description of the renewal of the Church: ‘And the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.’