Sermon: A SOCIAL NETWORK

Many of you have seen the new film The Social Network about the college students who founded ‘Facebook’ in 2003.  I suppose this Cathedral should declare an interest: we have a Facebook page with more fans than any other cathedral in the world.  I flirted with Facebook, much to the distress of my children who regarded it as their territory and didn’t want me knowing too much about their lives. 

Social networking is about our longing for connection, for communities to belong to, for relationships.  It says in Genesis, ‘it is not good for a human being to be alone’.  I am no expert on digital media, though I am intrigued by its philosophical and theological consequences.  What kinds of relationships happen in cyberspace?  Does a community need to be face-to-face?  Can you have a virtual church?  Can you have an online party?

Our reading from St Luke’s Gospel is perhaps not a thousand miles away.  In the story, a man adopts the Facebook strategy which is to ask people you has never met and don’t know and have never even seen before to become your friends.  He does this because he is having a party.  He invites his family, friends, neighbours, business contacts.  But none of them wants to come, and they find every excuse not to: I’ve purchased land and must go and manage it; I’ve bought cattle and must see to them; I’ve just got married, so can’t come.  In the ancient world there’s only one thing worse than not offering hospitality yourself and that’s refusing to accept someone else’s.  Didn’t they like their host?  Were there old scores to settle?  We don’t know. 

But this host is not to be outdone.  He tells his servant to go out on the streets and find anyone they can to come to the party.  He means anyone: the homeless, the diseased, the mad, the outcast, the poor.  The story says, compel them to come in, so that my house may be full.  This man will party come what may: so a bit like Chad’s students.  And Jesus told this story as a picture of what God is like.  It turns out that God loves nothing better than a party.  Jesus dispels all the old assumptions about God being a fierce, stern, vengeful deity.  He says: think again, see how a world you never dreamed of is full of happiness and joy.  That is what God is like.  We thought we knew what religion was all about.  But here’s a story to make us laugh and sing, eat and drink.  When we party together, we glimpse something of the kingdom of God. 

Today we celebrate the life of our college.  I am glad that we have come to the Cathedral to mark a high point in our annual calendar.  Why?  Because we want to give thanks: for what our college means to us.  For me, it is a day that brings together two Durham institutions I take pride in: in St Chad’s as Rector, and in this Cathedral as Dean.   We celebrate the college as a place of education and learning, of community and friendship, of serious business, but also a place of recreation and fun.  All this goes into what I call ‘formation’, being made into the men and women we have the potential to become.  The influence of this college-shaped social network will be with us all our lives. 

Our history begins with St Chad, one of the students St Aidan taught on Holy Island 14 centuries ago.  The Venerable Bede sums up his character: ‘In addition to all his merits of temperance, humility, zeal in teaching, prayers and voluntary poverty… he was greatly filled with the fear of the Lord and mindful of his last end in all he did’.  It sounds quaint.  But what it really means is that he was the kind of human being for whom loving others and loving God were what mattered.  You could say that it made him the man he became, and this is why he was remembered. He said yes to the invitation to come to the party, yes to the dream that there is a better way of living than simply being obsessed with ourselves.  He said yes to the idea that connection is everything: connection to the God who made us and loves us; connection to the whole human race we share this planet with.  Knowing our place in God’s universe means we are ‘linked-in’ with the ultimate social network.

We may think that the party is meant for others.  But whoever we are, we are welcome guests at this banquet.  God wants us to find our way back to him, wants us to know that he loves us.  Today we celebrate what it means to belong to the social network of St Chad’s.  It’s a community of friendship past, present and future.  And that can be a picture of how God wants us to be his friends too.  We do not have to be alone.  Whatever lies ahead in the years to come, God wants us to come in and be part of his life of joy, peace and love.   I hope it’s a good party.