The Archbishop in Maidstone

On Saturday 23^rd October, the Archbishop of Canterbury came to the Community Support Centre in Marsham Street to talk to a large group of people under the umbrella of an organisation called Shalom. His talk was entitled, ‘Christ as the icon of wholeness’.

He spoke for some fifty minutes without notes, clearly, strongly, movingly, inspiringly and was listened to with great respect. He started by speaking of Christ as the focus of a restored humanity. Jesus has done the work; we are to grow into the life that is his. To be a Christian is to inhabit a new world. Ideas, rules come later; the first thing is to live in this new world. The new testament brings us into a new world, a new landscape; it is a work in progress, full of the excitement of working out what it is to live in this new world.

Christian maturity is rowing into Christ. The cross strips away what prevents us from being fully mature in Christ. Christian faith is about becoming more human, not less human. St Ireneaus, the 2^nd century Bishop of Lyons wrote, ‘The glory of God is a human being fully alive; life for a human being is the vision of God.’ To understand this, look at Jesus. In Jesus we see to a unique degree, a human being fully alive. Our lives are marked to some extent by a deadness: to prayer, to one another, to God. In Jesus there is no deadness; he is alive with the life and love of God.

Jesus is so full of life and radiance that death had no grip on him. The resurrection makes manifest Jesus life with no death in him. Death is being cut off, unable to act, dead to one another, with no communication, passive not active, motivated by instincts and selfish desires. This is what sin does. Jesus eyes are steadily fixed on the Father. He looks into people and sees the love of the Father calling him.

If we look at Jesus we see what humans are meant to become. Humanity is created so that God may shine through it. Our prayer is never a long distance address. The New Testament shows us God closer to us than we can imagine. We live in the space Jesus cleared for us, as close to God as Jesus was to us.

What gets in the way of our maturity in Christ. The dominant thinking in the western world today contains two big mistakes. Firstly, we think it good that a human being is in charge, on top of things, in control. How little this takes into account the vast majority of humankind; the poor, the oppressed, the disabled persons. Secondly, we think that it right that human beings can have it all, have everything come to us, be consumers of what we want. The great myths of western society are that we dominate (are active) and we consume (are passive). All around us this distorted view of humanity leads to the destruction of the environment, to vast injustice, to millions of people born to die soon. Behind these distorted views lie both economic and political forces as well as the habits of humanity.

The contrast here with the fourth gospel is vast. There we are asked to totally surrender. Jesus says, look where I am looking. Life flows through Jesus utterly dependant on the Father. Yet, paradoxically, Jesus is supremely free. He walks through hostility and suspicion to do what he has to do. In Jesus there is no anxiety; agony, maybe but no anxiety. The heart of discipleship is this dependence on the Father which brings a freedom, a proper detachment. Then we are free to be who we really are; free to do what we are made for. It is the saints who are free people.

The fourth gospel walks a tightrope between freedom and dependence. Jesus burns these together in the loving gaze of the Father. How do we know? We have seen holiness in others and it works.

The processes of healing have to do with looking at some of the ways each of us allows our lives to be distorted by these popular myths. Where are we seeking to control; where are we seeking to avoid responsibility. What fears do we have; what is their relationship to past hurts. Healing involves patient, loving recovery of injured memory. What we are to pray for is this: freedom to grow towards full human maturity measured by the full stature of Christ. We might find this in surprising places such as coming to terms with our own mortality, with the circumstances of our own lives.

St Ireaneaus words, ‘The glory of God is a human being fully alive; life for a human being is the vision of God.’ are the centre of our faith. On Easter Sunday the world looked different. Sometimes it takes time to see this. One blind man Jesus healed at first only saw things fuzzily, only the second time did he see clearly. Our task is to open a door into this new world and to share what we see together on our journey.

After this talk, and a break for refreshments, the Archbishop very graciously responded to a number of questions and comments. Two of these were challenging what the archbishop said and a third was very very critical of the archbishop. I so admired the gracious and undefensive way the archbishop responded.

I do consider that we are very very fortunate to have such a sensitive and thoughtful archbishop who lives so close to God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I wish he could spend less time on some of the terrible controversies that he must face and more on this so helpful, simple telling people about God and his ways.

Christopher Morgan-Jones