DIOCESAN SYNOD – 10 MARCH 2007

Bishop’s Address

At our last Synod I began with a quotation from the opening of Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities.” This time I begin by quoting the opening of Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina”: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

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The Primates of our family of the Anglican Communion recently met in Dar es Salaam. They issued a unanimous Communique, and a draft Covenant for consideration. We shall follow the Provincial timetable in responding.

Globally, we share in many debates - the ordination and consecration as bishops of persons in same-sex relationships; the blessing of such partnerships; how Anglican teaching is to be defined, and how we may Covenant together to enhance our life. Related to this there is a need for study and debate on our use of the Bible, and I myself would add, the need for us to devote more time to study how we understand God.

Our Communion is still holding together, but tensions and differences are part of its life. We face the question as to how to understand such differences, how to live together with them, and how far we see them as being the result of our humanity, or of our God.

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But I am not going to discuss these now. I want today to look together at the readings set for this Saturday of the second week of Lent.

The Gospel Reading is the familiar parable from St Luke’s Gospel. The text is very familiar, but it is a parable that goes by different names. Some call it the Parable of the Prodigal Son. This invites us to make a contrast between the compassion of the Father as his prodigal son returns, and the harsh response of the elder brother. The Father’s compassion contrasts with the brother’s demands of justice.

Some call it the Parable of Two Sons and we are invited to contrast the behaviour of the one son who has shown a constant loyalty and obedience to his father over the years, and the other who exhibits the life of a sinner who repents. Here we see enacted the truth that there is more joy over one sinner that repents, than over ninety-nine that never went astray. The grace of repentance and forgiveness contrasts with a loyal fulfilment of the law.

Neither contrast, nor name, to me, captures the true essence of the parable, and so for the purpose of this address I shall call it the Parable of the Troubled Family.

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But first notice an interesting feature of this Parable. Often in the Gospels, when Jesus tells a parable, he goes on to explain it in some way, or make some comment upon it.

For example, the parable of the sower is explained by Jesus in detail regarding the significance of the seeds that fell on different sorts of ground. The parable of the Good Samaritan is followed by Jesus’ question “Who was neighbour to the man who fell among thieves?” The parable we had read to us today ends with no comment by Jesus, or by Luke. It simply ends!

Yes, there is comment made within the Parable itself. The father, talking to the elder brother, interprets his action of welcoming the prodigal home. But there is no subsequent comment by Jesus (or St Luke). There is no command from Jesus of the form “Go and do thou likewise.” The parable is simply told, and it ends with the picture of the Father and his two sons standing together in that farm – a real tension existing between them.

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We can be misled into thinking that the Parable ends with a scene of rejoicing (rejoicing over the sinner that repents) – after all there is a party going on. The fatted calf has been killed, and many are making merry. Also the final words of the father within the parable are also an invitation to rejoice. 

But the parable does not end on any note of joy. The elder son does not join in the merriment. He is silent. The parable ends with a family discovering real tensions in its life together, and one is left wondering whether that family will survive what has happened to it.

Given the response of his elder brother, will the prodigal easily fit back in to a shared life together? Might the elder brother soon loose patience with the prodigal and the apparent favouritism of his sentimental Father, take his share of the inheritance, and choose to walk apart.

The parable ends with these three people standing together on the stage, facing the prospect of an uneasy life together, and we are left wondering.

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Just look more closely at them as individuals.

• · There is the faithful son who stayed at home - who looked after the farm, who was loyal to his father, who honoured him. He took seriously the words of the Commandment “Honour thy Father and thy Mother.” Here is person who now speaks out of a sense of what is just. He asks for justice and one can feel the power in his demand.
• · There is the compassionate Father – the person who went that extra mile to show love and forgiveness. Perhaps he had naively hoped that his elder son would have followed him in feeling as he did, and would have spontaneously rejoiced at his brother’s return. There is disappointment in his voice as he pleads for his elder son to join him in that show of forgiveness.
• · And there is the prodigal, who has recognised his folly, who exhibits the virtue of repentance, and with a sorrow and humility casts himself upon the love of that father. Self-esteem damaged, but with courage in his humility, he begins to climb back to life.
• Faithfulness, Compassion, Courage and Repentance,

It is certainly a family of three individuals each with their virtues, but it is by no means a harmonious family. Virtuous they may be, but a turbulence faces them.

And this is simply because the virtues we are called to embody in our life, clash uncomfortably. As I frequently find myself saying, the real clashes we so often have to handle in life are never between the clearly good and the obviously bad (such does at times confront us), but more often than not, the conflict we face is between the good and the good. We know that clearly in many aspects of our lives, and we need to apply it in many more.

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Virtues clash, and even the most virtuous people have their weaknesses..

• · The son who stayed at home makes a significant and clear demand in the name of Justice, but in doing so begins to evince impatience and a hardness of heart.
• · The Father who orders the killing of the fatted calf shows deep and significant compassion, but in doing shows a lack of the virtue of political realism in managing his household, which results in a potentially destructive tension.
  · The Prodigal who evinced the virtue of repentance, must be ready to live now with the fact of what he did – namely squander his share of the inheritance, and did long-term damage the viability of the homestead.We can see all this clearly set out in the parable.

And just go over that list the virtues for a moment – justice, compassion, repentance, political realism,…… The story of our life together as a Communion could also be seen as containing clashes around just the same values, and around just the same weaknesses.

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But the parable is a brief story told in words. We are given brief, but sufficient, details by Luke. The brevity of his narrative lets the stories of the participants stand out clearly for us to consider.

• · We hear the story of the elder son and how he stayed loyally at home.
• · We hear the story of the Prodigal, his profligate lifestyle and his repentance.
• · We hear the story of the Father, his farewell to the Prodigal, and his welcoming him home again.

But in the actual world in which we live, and where we feel the violence of real clashes, we do not necessarily know the background stories of all involved. We need to do hard work before we can hear them, and discover the particular contexts out of which people think and act.

We know our own story, and may be held so captive by it that our temptation is to assert that anything that clashes with it must therefore be a vice.

And if we are even just a little self-aware we can sense that from the standpoint of another’s story, we may be seen as the evil threat to them.

Yet that Parable of the Troubled Family forces us to move to another level.

• · We need to rise above that simple desire to see all conflict as on an axis of good and evil.
• · We need to acknowledge that it is often good things that clash with other good things in God’s world.
• · We need to see that even the most virtuous of persons, including ourselves, have their weaknesses and blind-spots.

In the parable we are shown what one such family is like, and we are can ask ourselves, What is needed to enable such a family to regain its coherent life together, and flourish again?

No direct parallels between the Family of the Prodigal and the Family of the Church are possible, for as I reminded you at the start of this address, from Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

But let us still hold to that question.

What is needed to enable such a family to regain its coherent life together, and flourish again?

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A fortnight ago I was in Nigeria. With others from Christian Aid I was looking at work being done by the Churches and other in Central Nigeria in relation to HIV/AIDS. We looked in part at the interaction between Christians and Muslims in that country. In many areas the relationship was a violent one.

We saw a short film “The Pastor and the Imam” a documentary about the reconciling work affected by one Pastor and one Imam in the Nigerian state of Kaduna. We joined a plenary discussion with the Pastor and Imam concerned. The Imam was a remarkable man. He was asked about the resolution of conflict and he said that in relation to any attempt to achieve reconciliation five virtues are necessary

• · There is needed the courage to face the issues giving rise to the conflict - this takes courage, for there is always the temptation to denial and to hope that the issue would simply away in time.
• · We need to be open to see weakness, and even something destructive and evil, in our own position.
• · We need patience to wait as attitudes shift and move.
• · We must never hate, but always seek to show compassion.
• · We need strength to hold to, and remain focussed on our goal of reconciliation, particularly when discouraging voices make themselves heard.

And that Imam went on to say that anyone working towards reconciliation and healing will hear critical charges from all sides.

People will fall into three categories as they see any work towards reconciliation. Some will see it as the work of people who are now being traitors to their true cause; some will see it as the work of people who are simply being compromisers; and sadly, only a very few will see any virtue in what they are attempting.

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Move back to our parable the Parable of the Troubled Family. It is a parable showing with an uncanny realism what “life together” in God’s world is like. Ours is a world of human failings and clashing values. It shows us that “life together” is not always the rosy picture of the romantic novelist. There is roughness to it. It is deeply tragic. We live with imperfection. Yet it is a world out of which the things of God can still shine.

• · At the deep heart of that Troubled Family lies the plea of the Father, that the tension between the two sons be healed.
• · At the deep heart of our world lies the eternal prayer of Jesus that we too may be one.

The cement that can bind such a troubled family together is trust.

In the face of the incomprehensible evils and suffering in the world, we are called, (in the words of Herbert’s hymn), to trust our God, trusting that “behind a frowning providence he hides a smiling face”.

Likewise our first calling as troubled church family is to learn trust, and to see that behind what may yet perplex and puzzle us in another person’s story, there can yet lie a common dedication and an attempt to be faithful to the Gospel. 

Without a committment to seeking mutual trust, by mutual listening; and to mutual learning with patience, we can only remain in a world of political posturing, and political manoeuvring.

Ecclesiastical politics has its place, but at its best it can but create a temporary space within which a deeper trust can begin to take root if we will it. And only within such a climate of trust can a mutually critical meeting of minds move us forward together.

If we are to be realistic about what it means to be the family of the church, then the Parable of the Troubled Family may have much to teach us about the tragedy that affects us all.

Lent is our season for waiting and listening. It is certainly a time for resisting, as Christ himself in the wilderness did, temptations to easy answers; but it must be a waiting in the hope that the power of Christ to reconcile, and enliven the spirit of trust within us, will not in the end be thwarted by any impatience or any folly on our part..

© The Rt Rev Brian Smith
Bishop of Edinburgh
March 2007