Read Bishop Helen-Ann's Presidential Address from Diocesan Synod, held at Newcastle Cathedral on Saturday 13 July.
A day or so after the General Election, the England men’s football team manager Gareth Southgate wished our new PM well but said he had no tips for how to tackle being in the public eye. "No, I don't have any advice," Southgate said. "I think when you're in a position of responsibility, as I am, you realise that advice comes from every direction… Everybody has a simple solution to complex problems so I'm sure he's going to be inundated". The same could be said for a diocesan bishop!
We meet today in the early days of a changed political landscape. This week I travelled to Westminster to swear my oath of allegiance to the King. The Parliamentary Estate did indeed feel a bit like fresher’s week and the reconfigured seating in the House of Lords felt disorientating. Peers who I am used to looking at are now sat around and behind the bishops, and there was a noted sense of change both visually and in how colleagues behaved when they entered the Chamber, finding their seats in new places. There was a lot of positive energy, and I was glad to soak up feelings of genuine hope for the future. I lived up to the North East characteristic of ‘shy bairns get nowt’ in using the heft of the Bishop of Lincoln nobly assisted by the determination of Baroness Uddin of Bethnal Green (who declared the whole endeavour an act of inter-faith witness) to shoehorn my way into an early part of the queue to take the oath.
As a Lord Spiritual, I don’t vote in a General Election. Intentionally not voting made me think about what elections are for and what they point to. A General Election is for the very important task of choosing someone to represent us in the communities where we live. I was struck by headlines like ‘make your voice heard’ amidst the many competing and eye-catching slogans offered by political parties. I loved seeing the social media photos of dogs at polling stations, even a brave cat, and my personal favourite hashtag ‘nunsatpollingstations’. All of life, in other words was bound up in this event. As to what Elections point to, well this is where it gets interesting.
Some of the results in the 8 constituencies that are within our diocese were very significant, particularly in the Hexham and North Northumberland constituencies. We now have two MPs who are Government Ministers: Sir Alan Campbell MP for Tynemouth, Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury and Chief Whip; and Catherine McKinnell MP for Newcastle North as Minister of State in the Department for Education. Our new PM in his first speech delivered outside No. 10 invited us to join ‘this government of service’. I have been struck by this language of service, along with the Government’s intentional use of the word ‘missions’. I note that the PM’s deputy speech writer used to be the ABC’s speechwriter. There is an opportunity here for communities of faith to engage with this language in ways that can elevate how we proclaim and share the Gospel with renewed confidence. Please pray for our elected representatives and I encourage you to reach out and invite them to church and community events.
As well as the changing political landscape, we meet today in the joyful after-glow of our recent ordination services. This afternoon here in the Cathedral we will install a new residentiary Canon. There is so much to give thanks for in this season of renewal as we continue to face into our own reality. There are important issues before us today. As a reminder of our wider Church life we will hear from our General Synod representatives about some of the issues debated and decided in York. LLF is making slow but determined progress, and safeguarding remains front and centre, and rightly so. Our diocese recently went through our Independent Safeguarding Audit, a process which I cannot commend highly enough for its fairness, robustness, and challenge. The final report will be published later this month.
Looking ahead, as we develop our renewed strategy based on our vision of a diocese that is seeking, sharing, and sending, turning outwards in mission, and becoming younger and more diverse, we will need to pay attention to the alignment of our resources to this vision. This is the purpose of the Governance Review and while I am disappointed that the governance review has not concluded before the end of this triennium, I will be pushing firmly and collegially for this work to be completed and implemented as soon as possible in the new triennium. I encourage us to be open to challenges, realistic about the change and churn that awaits and courageous as we navigate through it together.
I want to turn now and say a bit more about the word ‘seeking’; the first word of our Diocesan vision. I was struck by Jessica Martin’s reflection during her sermon in York Minster on Sunday morning, at which members of General Synod were present: ‘Visions are not something apart, some sort of cosmic consumable light show’. A vision is not the event that is out there, it is right here, around us in this place and in every place.
Seeking is a dynamic that invites both pace and patience. There is a sense of energy. I wonder if that is that because something or someone is lost; or that there is a sense of something missing as in the song “Big Yellow Taxi” by Joni Mitchell:
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
(I’m not brave enough to attempt to sing that!)
Beautiful things can get paved over in the power of big business.
In literature quest is bound up with story: seeking something framed by a narrative (even a homeland). In Homer’s Odyssey, seeking and searching entail discoveries, corrections, changes in plans, growth in understanding. Seeking is always a process rather than a one-off event. When Odysseus got home to Ithaca this was just at the beginning of something, not the end.
The Bible is a library of books for seekers. There is human seeking for other people or lost property, or food or pasture (for livestock) or whatever is treasure. There is the unexpected too. In Eden God seeks Adam and Eve (where are you) in their hiding; Saul seeks his father’s donkeys and ends up being king or John’s disciples seek where Jesus is staying and find the Messiah; or at the Resurrection Jesus’ followers seek Jesus’ body in a grave and instead find (are met by) a living person. On some occasions too, people do not find what they are searching for. Seeking takes on qualities that are moral and spiritual: searching out the commandments; or searching one’s spirit in meditation; or searching for wisdom or searching the Scriptures. Perhaps Ecclesiastes is the key exemplar in searching for fulfilment in all the wrong places before coming to the end of the matter in concluding that the goal of life is to fear God and keep God’s commandments which is the whole duty of humankind. In the New Testament seeking is grounded in God’s kingdom. Indeed, to “Seek me and live” is the arguably the Divine invitation of the whole Bible.
While Scripture is full of human seeking for God the heart is in God’s seeking after people and creation. Consider the Medieval Scottish theologian Duns Scotus that “God would have sent God’s Son even if there had not been a fall”. After all God clothes Adam and Eve before they leave Eden. Jesus’ birth is the heart of God’s seeking (and at-one-ment/atonement – the Word become flesh. Another aspect of God’s seeking is the God who searches every mind and every heart. All of this stands as much under the presence and work of God’s Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit who inspires, leads, guides, and settles. It is the Spirit we invoke in all our work, alone, together, in parishes, chaplaincies, schools and diverse places of work, rest and play.
Seeking and finding are built into the fabric of human living. In Scripture the rhythm of seeking is part of human life in the world (not just in the church or temple!) and part of the spiritual life in which we all dwell. At a human level there is “a time to seek”. At a divine level life is lived in a double awareness: that God has come to seek the lost, and that the person who seeks will find. This is the wondrous reality that we are invited to embrace in an intentional season of seeking.
Before I conclude, I would like to pay tribute to those elected members of this Synod who are stepping down with great gratitude for their time on Synod. Please if you are present today would you stand so we can offer our appreciation. From the House of Clergy I would like to particularly mention Canon Adrian Hughes who retired at the end of June. I would also like to pay a personal thanks to the bishop’s nominees, particularly Liz Kerry who is also stepping down from chairing the DMPC and who has served this diocese immensely well in this role, and on Bishop’s Council and as a member of the CNC.
A final word.
There is a risk that the working out of resourcing can become rooted in the principle of scarcity. I note that the Archbishops’ Commissions (on families and households, care, racial justice, housing, and community) sought to address policy challenges through the framework of ‘reimagining’ as the means of charting a new course, drawing on Christian theology, tradition, and values. It’s my hope that such a reimagining can lie at the heart of our seeking, sharing, and sending. It continues to be a huge joy and privilege to serve as your bishop, and I give thanks for your patience and forbearance as I continue to form myself more fully into the leader that I believe, and trust God is calling me to be for the sake of God’s Kingdom in this diocese.