Sermon: Planning: A Lost Cause?

Pity the poor person whose namesake becomes famous.  There is a priest in another part of the country whose name caused him no trouble at all until JK Rowling's children's books became a major sensation.  Since then the Rev Harry Potter has had trouble with his introductions.  There is a curate in Leicester diocese called Rowan Williams. And when I was chaplain of King's College Cambridge the chaplain of St John's was none other then the Rev George Bush. In the town where I used to live the manager of the town hall was called Paul Hogan and it was impossible not to think of him as ‘Crocodile Dundee'.

But pity even more the person whose namesake becomes infamous.  Imagine being called Myra Hindley, Fred West or Robert Sutcliffe. So, to misquote Jesus Christ Superstar, ‘Poor old Judas son of James'. You can imagine the embarrassed introductions, ‘meet Judas, one of the twelve - let me rephrase that, Judas one of the eleven.' 

This confusion is what lies behind the idea that Jude is the patron saint of lost causes. As the Christians of an earlier age were invoking saints to their cause in prayer they would start at the top or maybe with a personal patron and work down. Only when all else failed would they turn to the man with the dodgy name.  Expressions of gratitude to Jude for successful intercessory help are often placed in Catholic and other papers. And it is worth noting a form of prayer that is often used by supplicants:

"Most holy apostle, St. Jude Thaddeus, faithful servant and friend of Jesus, the name of the traitor has caused you to be forgotten by many. But the Church honours and invokes you universally as the patron of hopeless causes, of things almost despaired of. Pray for me, I am so helpless and alone. Make use, I implore you, of that particular privilege given to you, to bring visible and speedy help where help is almost despaired of. Come to my assistance in this great need that I may receive the consolation and help of heaven in all my necessities, tribulations, and sufferings, particularly -- (Here make your request) and that I may praise God with you and all the saints forever. I promise, O blessed St. Jude, to be ever mindful of this great favour, to always honour you as my special and powerful patron, and to gratefully encourage devotion to you. Amen."

In his last novel Jude the Obscure Thomas Hardy played on this theme of lost cause rather more literally. This is dark and tragic tale of a young man who despite his optimism and ambition was unable to make progress in the world, there were just too many obstacles in front of him, too many hills to climb. It is a cautionary tale for all those who would seek to plan or work their way out of a crisis or to a better life.  Let us remind ourselves of the thoughts running through the young artisan's mind.

Jude is beguiled by ambition and the prospect of success.  And it is on this basis, plus, clearly, some natural talent and ability he makes his plans of going to Christminster, being admitted to a college becoming a DD...

And then he continued to dream, and thought he might become even a bishop by leading a pure, energetic, wise, Christian life. And what an example he would set! If his income were £5000 a year, he would give away £4500 in one form and another, and live sumptuously (for him) on the remainder.  Well, on second thoughts, a bishop was absurd. He would draw the line at an archdeacon. Perhaps a man could be as good and as learned and as useful in the capacity of archdeacon as in that of bishop.  Yet he thought of the bishop again'. (P 43 Pan Edition).

But Jude does not become a bishop, or even and archdeacon. He is not admitted to a college in Christminster. In fact everything goes wrong for him and the story does not have a happy ending.  The plan does not work out.  It is a tragedy. All along it was a lost cause. 

What are we to make of this? It seems to me that there are two alternative conclusions that we might draw.

First we might be critical of Jude.  His hopes were not founded on realism but fantasy. He was attracted by the glamour of a world for which he did not have the entry ticket. He should have known his place. 

Conversely we might be outraged by the injustice and consumed by sadness.  If things were fair then Jude would have been a success in Christminster.  If we ourselves have any experience of being outsiders we will feel the pain of Jude's thwarted ambition very keenly.

But I want to suggest that there are deeper insights that might be derived from reflecting on the theme of lost causes through the lens of Jude the Obscure.

As regulars at Matins will know, I have offered some sermons in recent months on the various themes of our diocesan development plan. I hesitate to return to that subject under this theme but I am persuaded to do so not so much by any thoughts on the detail of what is proposed but by various feelings and thoughts that are coming together for me under the heading of planning.

On one occasion after a presentation on issues connected with this business of diocesan planning someone said to me, ‘I only have one question.  Why plan?'  ‘I wish you had said that in the session,' I replied. ‘It is a fundamental issue.'

It was a keen one for me at the time for I was having a lot of difficulty with some parishes which I was working with, trying to persuade them to come up with ideas for a future in which there would be fewer clergy.  The response that I was getting boiled down to this, ‘we'll cross that bridge when we get to it'. 

The anti-planning attitude is precisely expressed in that phrase.  And there is, in my view, a lot to be said for it. There is a place for planning, but I always feel that a plan is a somewhat hypothetical thing. Not a course of action but a guide to informed decision making nearer the time.  And in my experience the best argument for making Plan A is that we will at the end of the day have a better Plan B, C or D as a result of making Plan A. But while I tend to believe this I realise that it is a belief rather than a fact and that there are circumstances in which planning can help and others in which planning, focusing on the future, can actually be a distraction from the present. 

A parish priest put this to a group who had gathered for some leadership training recently. ‘I heard a great talk the other day' he said, ‘the speaker was arguing that successful businesses are no longer investing in big exercises about the future, they are not setting up 5 and 10 year plans.  Hindsight is telling people that these exercises are not worth the effort.  Big plans don't work out. The approach to planning in business is different now. They see it more like sailing. The task is to have a clear idea of destination and then to put all the energy into setting the sails well and to making progress though whatever the weather throws up.  Often the wind will be blowing in the wrong direction. Then you will have to tack - and that means that most of the time you will not be pointing in the right direction at all, though you will be making progress towards it.'

I am very attracted by the sailing metaphor. Get the destination pinpointed and then to do whatever you can to make progress.  Clearly you must listen to the weather forecast but the priority must be on dealing with the actual squalls as and when they arrive. You need a life jacket too. But the absolute necessity is to deal with the present.  A Biblical maxim for this approach would be ‘Sufficient to the day are the evils thereof'.

Is planning, trying to organise the future, a lost cause?  The question for us as we make plans, whether about our own lives or the areas where we exercise responsibility, is to be sure that we are not so beguiled by our planning that we lose sight of the need to respond to the prevailing weather conditions and at the same time enjoy the journey.  Planning for tomorrow can always be a distraction from living today. 

That does not excuse us from the obligation of having a sense of purpose, mission or direction in what we do.  More specifically it does not prevent us from longing and aspiring for God's Kingdom.  But it does perhaps help us accept the truth that what actually happens, what actually results, where we actually arrive is a product of many influences, most of which are well beyond our awareness or control.  In other words we must do some planning but we must do it with circumspection and humility.  For what you can't plan for is the unexpected.  And our God is a God of surprises.