Deuteronomy 10: 12 – 11: 1 Acts 23: 12-35
It would all have been over for Paul if people of faith had had their way. It is the secular state, in our second lesson this morning, which executes justice and avoids the execution of one of the architects of the Christian religion by giving him passage to escape his ambushers.
This is because Paul is a Roman citizen but the tribune who writes to Felix the Governor is nevertheless clear that Paul has done nothing deserving imprisonment or death and that the charge against him by the Jews is a matter concerning a religious law.
Even today, it is our secular citizenship which determines our safety and – indeed – our freedom to worship our God, as long as we do so in a way that does not contravene any secular laws which would be deserving of the penalties dealt by the State.
On the weekend of the King’s official birthday, it is perhaps appropriate to consider questions about Church and State.
The King is Supreme Governor of the Church of England and it was Henry VIII who ended the jurisdiction in his realm of the Pope to whom people of faith turned when they wanted to double check if the demands of the secular state were consonant with their faith.
Henceforth, the King would decide and any self-respecting bishop who wanted to retain his office would agree with the King.
We saw some of the echoes of this in the past few months here at Durham Cathedral when we were working out who the next Bishop of Durham would be. As a result of a complicated series of manoeuvres in the 16th century concerning the stability and security of the State, the King decides who the bishops of the Church of England will be.
Fortunately, nowadays, the Diocese gets very involved in helping to determine who would be a good fit and a group of people appointed by the Church nominates the successful candidate. But then they have to ask the King to approve their decision and he tells the relevant local cathedral to elect the person whose nomination he has approved. There are dire penalties if the said cathedral’s college of canons fails to do so but, as there is only one candidate, they don’t really have much choice.
Once elected, the King then instructs the archbishop of the relevant province (York or Canterbury) to make arrangements for the elected candidate to be enthroned in their cathedral church (and consecrated too if that needs to happen). Finally, the newly elected and enthroned bishop goes to see the King to pay homage to the Sovereign and to confirm in person that they will be faithful and bear true allegiance to him.
Fortunately, God does come into it too but largely as a bi-product of the fact that the process is all about a teacher of the faith. Although to be fair to Henry VIII’s Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, the state prayer for the Sovereign in his Book of Common Prayer echoes this morning’s first lesson when it reminds us that the prayer for the King is offered to a God who is ultimately ‘King of kings and Lord of lords, the only ruler of princes’.
Of course, we wouldn’t make it up today but questions about the future of the relationship between the Church of England and the State often focus on the bi-products – to use that word again – of the relationship: not least the opportunity for faith to be visible in the various machinations of the State both nationally and locally.
At Bishop Rick Simpson’s enthronement last weekend, the King’s representative Mike Butterwick was the principal guest and was accompanied by the High Sheriff, MPs, mayors, police chiefs, and university officials.
It all plays to one of Rowan Williams’s descriptors of the activity of the Church in the modern age: that we’re ‘keeping the rumour of God alive’.
This coming Wednesday, Philip the Dean and I will spend time with assistant curates from the Diocese talking about ‘public square ministry’ by which we mean opportunities to keep the rumour of God alive outside of the congregational activity of worship, teaching and pastoral care that ordinarily occupies a priest’s time. Cathedrals do it par excellence partly because we have inherited many instances when it happens (the Miners Festival Service and the justice service would be good examples of that here) and partly because we are high profile enough to attract individuals or institutions who want a bit of the magic when it comes to marking what they do and who they are (witness recent approaches to us from the Coroner’s Office wanting a platform on which to affirm those affected by suicide and the Police and Crime Commissioner’s Office wanting to use sacred space for those affected by road traffic collisions).
These are opportunities which are worth engaging with and they are bi-products of some rather quirky outcomes of Henry VIII and reorganisation of state control but – and this is the important part of what I want to say this morning – they must be re-earned by the Church in our own day and not taken for granted.
It was vital at Bishop Rick’s enthronement last Sunday that representatives of other Christian denominations were present and indeed that representatives of other faiths were also present.
And the ministry of the Church of England should never become congregational. It must always aim to be, in the words of former Archbishop of Canterbury William Temple, the one club that exists for people who aren’t its members. That’s hard work but the opportunities are endless. We must never retreat into ourselves.
Then the King or his representatives can come to our gatherings with their heads held high knowing that, in the words of our first lesson this morning, the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe, who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them with food and clothing.
Here in Durham, we can well look over to the north of the Cathedral and to that the symbol of secular power – Durham Castle – and agree with the psalmist that, ‘upon the north-side lieth the city of the great King’ where ‘God is well known in hr palaces as a sure refuge.’
Let us pray:
Behold, O Lord God, our strivings after a truer and more abiding order. Give us visions that bring back a lost glory to the earth, and dreams that foreshadow the better order which you have prepared for us. Scatter every excuse of frailty and unworthiness: consecrate us all with a heavenly mission: open to us a clearer prospect of our work. Give us strength according to our day gladly to welcome and gratefully to fulfil it; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
And may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all, evermore. Amen.