This evening (Thursday November 14) saw the
first Cathedral Foundation Day in Christ Church Cathedral. The celebration of
cathedral life took place on the feast of St Laurence O’Toole , the patron of
the diocese of Dublin.
Traditionally the dean and chapter of the
cathedral meet to mark St Laurence tide. Members discuss the affairs of the
cathedral along with arranging the canon in residence schedule for the coming
year. The chapter has faithfully fulfilled this function ever since the
Reformation.
This year, Dean Dermot Dunne arranged for a
shorter meeting to take place making way for foundation day, an occasion which
was aimed at allowing everyone connected to the cathedral to meet.
The evening was a great success with the
regular cathedral family joined by Friends, the cathedral board and chapter,
celebrants, occasional preachers, volunteers, all the staff, the choir and
anyone with a connection to the cathedral.
Choral evensong was sung by the cathedral
choir. The sermon was preached by Archbishop Michael Jackson.
Following the service everyone repaired to
the Crypt for a wine and buffet reception.
The Archbishop’s sermon is reproduced in
full below:
Christ
Church Cathedral, Eve of St Laurence O’Toole November 14th 2013
Readings:
1 Samuel 28.3–19; Romans 1.18–25
A
sermon preached by the Archbishop
1
Samuel 28.8: … Saul put on different clothes and went in disguise
with two of his men. He came to the woman by night and said, Tell me my fortune
by consulting the dead, and call up the man I name to you.
In
his Letter to the Romans, St Paul begins by making an apology for not having
visited this community, in order to give and to share the Gospel with them. He
goes on to make the stark and electrical contrast between the Creator and the
creature. His main point quite clearly is that for those who receive, through
the Gospel, the fullness of who God is in the incarnate Son and in the energizing
Spirit, there is no credible substitute for this God. It is, therefore, rank
folly, in the logic of his argument, to be: exchanging
the glory of the immortal God for an image shaped like mortal man … (Romans
1.23)He is, of course, drawing together
thoughts and responses which he has had to make to disparate and dispersed and
disgruntled communities right round the Mediterranean coastline in order to
make a coherent theology for these new churches. Disparate, dispersed and
disgruntled communities still exist in churches worldwide to this day. Such
communities in St Paul’s day comprise people new to Christianity who bring with
them ideas and practices from their own cultural contexts. Today we might, or
might not, be more accommodating. Who really can tell? In his day, Paul was
urgent to press on with the magnum opus
which is: The Epistle to the Romans and therefore: The Epistle to the Roman
Empire. He gives us his most forceful conviction and we are the better for
having the broad sweep of his confidence and his genius in this nuanced letter.
Please admit at least that he is honest in his own terms and in offering his
own ministry back to God.
Saul,
in 1 Samuel 28, is in a very bad state. Not only is he playing with fire; he is
playing with the dead – and it is clear that the God of 1 Samuel is far from
pleased with him and with his necromancy. At the heart of the abuse of God by
Saul there is also, as is so often the case with abuse, the abuse of a fellow
human being. He compromises The Witch of Endor by having her ply her profession
of witchcraft when he, the same Saul, has expressly banished from the land all who trafficked with ghosts and spirits. (1
Samuel 28.3b) His own corruption manifests itself in fatally contravening his
own orders and instructions to others and in implicating other people in his
deceit. Is it any wonder that the woman, when Samuel appeared: shrieked and said to Saul, Why have you
deceived me? You are Saul! (1 Samuel 28.12) We know what happens; Samuel
warns Saul that the game is up; the Philistines are in the ascendant; the
kingdom is being given directly by God to David. However the message has a
wider application in terms of self–care, patronage, responsibility in
leadership and use and abuse of others and of oneself. Saul is not a lone voice
in playing with spiritual fire; many in the contemporary church do so.
And
so, on the Eve of St Laurence, Holy Scripture gives us a precautionary and a
cautionary tale. The precaution is to cherish the gift of God which God gives
us in the Gospel. The caution is not to deceive God and others while you’re at
it. None of this is attractive to a contemporary generation because we are so
naively clear that there is no such thing as spiritual evil and we have so
comprehensively convinced ourselves that we can handle it even if it existed.
The same still goes for the broad sweep of setting ourselves up as in the place
of the Creator and not sufficiently respecting the distinction between creature
and creator. Both of these are very modern dilemmas, illustrated for us this
evening in very ancient Scriptures. The pressures to conform to the idea of
what we observe as being the sum total of what exists, along with the pervasive
despiritualising of the human person in contemporary life make the most
innocent of affectionate outreaching almost impossible. If only we were willing
to be obedient to Scripture and tradition, in the light of reason, we would
understand that the argument of Romans 1.18–25 is the plea to take seriously
the statement in Genesis 1.26, 27 that humankind is created in the image and
likeness of God and that it is the longing of God to re–integrate this image
and likeness in the offering of self which humankind gives back to God through
the redemptive work of Jesus Christ.
And
so the language of healing, the talk of mercy, the beauty of place, the voice
of liturgy and indeed the community of friendship do not happen and do not work
– for more and more people in a self–congratulatory, self–secularizing society.
We here may take them for granted – in the best of senses – in a cathedral
church such as this where God is tangibly present to those who are humble
enough to be touched; where beauty is a given, however hard we struggle
sometimes to engage with it; where prayer is daily offered and we are conscious
that the loving discipline and domestic familiarity of chatting with God, as St
Augustine calls it (garrire). But for
many this is a rational and logical impossibility.
Entering
a cathedral church is what is rightly called a liminal experience. We cross the threshold (limen). We bring the world with us and, at the same time, leave the
world outside, caught between two worlds, conscious of the refreshment and the
curiosity which will equip us, if we will accept it, to go out again into the
world which lives and breathes to give praise and glory to God the Creator. It
is at points such as this that we need to take to our own heart the privilege afforded
us of such a relationship between creator and creature. In its own way, again as
St Augustine would argue, it is a sacrament, not so much in our sense of a
Dominical sacrament, like Baptism and The Lord’s Supper, but as an outward, visible
and tangible thing which points us to an invisible and spiritual reality and
one which takes us beyond the horizon of our own ego. It is a sacrament because
God is seen and handled by us in real things and in real activities and in real
people and yet remains God beyond us and still with us.
The
ministry of this cathedral is itself a mission. The mission of this cathedral
is itself a message. In saying this I draw your attention to the affection and
loyalty of The Friends; I lead you to the outreach of Mendicity in which many
from the community of this cathedral are involved; I invite you to acquaint
yourselves with the new and exciting Ministry among Young Adults which is
developing in the creative hands of Greg Fromholz, once again made possible in
and through the elasticity of welcome and outreach of this mother church of the
diocese. As each of you reviews the year past, you will have specific memories
of how the cathedral has touched you and how this quiet memory sustains and
empowers you as you go about daily life and work.
We
today rush to the internet for more information in order to solve our problems.
In medieval times people of God sought and honoured patronage. It was and
remained first and foremost the patronage of God the Creator but, creatures
that we are, we need the tangible patronage of a human person. The ways in
which history and politics have played out, we in Christ Church are today the
custodians of the Patronage of St Laurence with and for the city of Dublin and
this is a weighty privilege in a post–Reformation and a post–Christian age. It
requires both nerve and generosity.
What
can Laurence, our medieval inheritance and our contemporary patron teach us on
this Eve? As we face into the
indulgence of Christmas and the wilful forgetfulness of the Season of Advent
which precedes us we see in Laurence both asceticism and generosity; he
deprived his guests of nothing yet, legend tells us, he simply coloured red the
water that he drank. In Dublin he modelled care for the poor of the city. Abbot
of Glendalough aged 25 and archbishop of Dublin aged 32, he was the first Irish
person to occupy the see. Interestingly and importantly he introduced
Augustinian canons to the main churches of the diocese. Equally interestingly
he exercised a strong strain of political activity and, if contemporary
experience is anything by which to go, received little approbation for it. On
his deathbed in the Abbey of St Victor at Eu, in Normandy, Laurence replied to
the person who encouraged him to make his will that he had not a penny to give
to anyone. Forty–five years after his death he was canonized by Honorius iii in
1225.
The
Scriptural Readings for the Eve of St Laurence advise us strongly against the
personal idolatry which encourages us to pursue our one–item Agendas as if they
were the totality of Scripture as we live it out. The same readings plead with
us to give true recognition to God the Creator in our custodianship of
ourselves, of others and of the creation. In this spirit Laurence inspires us
to be generous in hospitality while being aware of our own limitations and,
furthermore, to be surprized by any form of greatness if it comes our way.
Romans
1.22: They boast of their wisdom, but
they have made fools of themselves…..