Sermon: ARE WE A GOOD CITY?

More than a thousand years ago, the community of St Cuthbert arrived on this peninsula of Dun Holm, set up a shine, built a church round it, and settled down for good.  Their long march from Lindisfarne to Durham around the north of England is captured in Fenwick Lawson's ‘Journey' sculpture in Millennium Square.  If it were not for Cuthbert and his community, there would be no Cathedral, no city, no university of Durham.  Someone strikingly said to me the other day that because of its founding story, Durham was, almost uniquely in England, a holy city.  It exists, and we are here today, because of a saint and his faith.  Durham's beginnings lie in sanctuary, pilgrimage and prayer.  Its civic life grew out of a holy place, took shape around a shrine.  Our city, clustered round its Cathedral, was in a way an extension of this sacred space, for our founders believed that God was as concerned with the city as he was with church, for all of life belonged to him.

The story of Cuthbert's community crossing the river to reach this peninsula has many echoes of the Old Testament: the Hebrews' journey from Egypt, the years of wandering, crossing the Jordan and arriving at the promised land.  The medieval chroniclers told of it in similar ways: Durham was the appointed place, chosen by Cuthbert himself.  Here his community would live for ever after.  It was seen as God-given: not simply a site that was well-defended against Vikings but land that was destined and promised, planned and set apart by God.  As the University's motto has it from the Psalms, ‘his foundation is upon the holy mountains'. 

The American political philosopher Michael Sandel says that we cannot understand ourselves but ‘as the particular persons we are - as members of this family or community or nation or people, as bearers of this history, as sons and daughters of that revolution, as citizens of this republic'.  So at the start of another civic year, we can ask: what does it mean to be Durham, with this weight of sacred history behind it?  What does it mean to be a city whose identity and values were shaped by Christianity? 

In our reading from Deuteronomy, Moses is speaking to the people on the threshold of the promised land.  He reminds them of their long history: ‘your ancestors went down to Egypt, seventy persons, and now the Lord your God has made you as numerous as the stars of heaven'.  And when they enter the land and build a settled life, what kind of community will they be?  What vision, what values will inspire them?  Today's reading answers that question.  ‘What does the Lord your God require of you?  only to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul'.  That is to re-state the first and great commandment, the shema' that is fundamental to Jewish faith which Jesus places at the heart of loyalty to God.  Crossing the river and arriving on this peninsula, our founding fathers and mothers would surely have echoed Moses and placed reverence for God at the heart of life.  This is why they made the Cathedral this city's glory to crown this acropolis. 

So the land is a place where the life of the spirit is honoured and nurtured.  And even in our secular society with its market-place of traditions, cultures and beliefs, and its uncertainties about religion and morality, we still need to honour the things that make us both human and humane.  This includes the part faith plays in public life.  We gather in the Cathedral today as the City of Durham.  We say prayers before Charter Trust meetings in the Town Hall.  The faith dimension of civic life matters.  And in case I am misunderstood, let me emphasise that the idea of a Christian society is not, and must not become, narrow and confining.  It should be large, generous and inclusive, open to the insights of all world faiths, and yes, to the insights of post Enlightenment secularism too, so that the human spirit is given space to flourish, difference is respected and healthy debate encouraged.  Whatever forms faith takes, we need to understand, especially in times of hardship, that we do not live by bread alone, though many try to.  There is a Taoist saying: if you have only two pence left in the world, buy a loaf of bread with one, and a lily with the other.  The life of the spirit and the imagination is that essential lily. 

But there is more to the idea of settling into a promised land.  ‘The Lord your God, the great God... executes justice for the orphan and widow; he loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing.  You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.'  That is to say, we must live out the true meaning of community with what it demands of us in our loyalties, relationships and mutual responsibilities. In the Old Testament this means showing justice and mercy to its most needy members who have no-one to speak for them or defend their rights: the poor who are always with us are God's poor.  Moses goes on to say that God loves the stranger, and this too is what we do in his name: welcome those who come from far away to study or work or live among us, whether they are visitors, immigrants, refugees or asylum seekers.  Perhaps Deuteronomy already anticipates that Israel's vocation is to be a citizen of the world.  In the Rule of St Benedict by which this Cathedral Priory once lived, it is a cardinal principle to welcome guests as Christ himself.  Or to put it in biblical language, we were all once strangers ourselves, and were taken in and made to belong.  Our hospitality mirrors the hospitality God himself shows us he welcomes us home in Jesus Christ.

In our New Testament reading St Paul urges us to ‘hold fast to what is good'.  He goes even further than the Old Testament in making it a mark of Christian charity that we must look after even our enemies if they are in need.  ‘Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.'  To cultivate the good in these ways is the mark of a truly civilised society and helps us judge whether we are a good city, true to Cuthbert, true to our Christian heritage, true to the complexities of the world in which we now live, true to the values that dignify and exalt a society: honesty, fairness, integrity, compassion, generosity, selflessness, care.  Citizenship means giving rather than receiving, asking not what our city can do for us so much as what we can do for it and for one another.  Our civic leaders show what it is to offer ourselves in the service of the good, to contribute to Durham's welfare and flourishing.  But it is for all of us to help make our city both wholesome and holy as a place to live and work in, a place to love and be proud of.  If we do this together, then our city can reflect the divine city whose builder and maker is God, and whose citizens Jesus makes us as we embrace the kingdom of heaven.  So I ask us all to hold in our prayers the Mayor, the Charter Trustees and all who work for the good of our city.  And we thank them in the name of God for all that they do among us.