Christians in Central
From Wellington Cathedral of St Paul
Faith in the City
- An address presented to the group "Christians in Central", Hong Kong on Tuesday 6 July 2010 by Frank Nelson, Dean of Wellington.
Just over 10 years ago we were struggling to get a lunch-time gathering of Christians on a weekday. I had inherited a pattern of a once a month meeting, where people brought along a sandwich and we spent 45 minutes sitting in the hall not really knowing what to talk about. As I remember it, Christine Chan and I, together with one or two others (quite likely Viola) were wondering what to do about it – how to attract more people, make more relevant etc
Christine said: Frank – Hong Kong people don’t take sandwiches to work, they eat out. If you want people to come – you have to give them a meal, properly catered, and make them pay for it! It was as simple as that – knowing the context, and making use of the context. I don’t know how things have gone over the past ten years – but the fact that I can be speaking at this 10th anniversary suggests we got something right.
Interestingly, I am trying to get a group of people meeting regularly in Wellington – on very similar lines to Christians in Central. We have opted for the name “Faith in the City” – and are targeting Christians who work in the city. While very much smaller than Hong Kong Wellington is the capital city and there are many people working in government, not necessarily elected to parliament, who are called on to make important decisions in their daily work. One of my concerns is to encourage and enable such people to make decisions with integrity, not putting aside their faith and belief when they go into a meeting, or draft a document for discussion.
A year ago a new chair was endowed at the University of Otago, our southernmost and oldest university – for Public Theology. In one of his opening addresses the new professor asked whether there can be any theology that is not public? It is a good question, and one we need to ask if we are serious about worshipping the God whom we call Lord and Saviour of the World.
In one sense all our theology is public – we live in a very open society where people are, by and large, free to pick and choose what they believe. I often talk about a supermarket approach to faith – for some people faith is a little like wandering down the aisles of a supermarket: I’ll take a little bit of this, and a piece of that. Many people today end up with a hotch-potch collection of spirituality which includes bits and pieces from a number of different, and sometimes contradictory, religions! And very often, it is a very personal affair with little, if any, commitment to the local church and community. That is part of living in a city – our networks are no longer neighbourly. Think for a moment who you will talk to today – either personally, by email or telephone. City living means our connections are not rooted in one place – we live in one area, work in another, play sport in yet another, eat out in another, have conversations with people the other side of the world and so on. One of the first things I learned when coming to Hong Kong twelve years ago was not to make eye-contact with people in the street – if you do, you bump into each other! But there is something quite sad there too – no eye contact means no real noticing of the individual.
I find myself wondering whether any of the disciples would have followed Jesus had he done the Hong Kong thing and avoided eye contact? How do you invite someone to follow you, to leave their nets, their seat at the bank, their position in the army – without actually looking at them? Of course, our world is very different to that of Jesus. We need to recognize that, and re-contextualise. We need to live out our faith in Jesus Christ in the context in which we find ourselves. That is what the incarnation is all about – God became a human being and lived among us! (Philippians 2)
But there is a problem here. One the one hand we live in a supermarket religious world of multiple choices where pick and choose is the norm; on the other we live in a world where it is not easy to make eye contact in the way that Jesus seems to have done.
In my own life, and now in a research project I am working on, I have found the wisdom of a man called Benedict, who lived in the 6th century AD at a place called Monte Cassino in Italy, profoundly helpful. I first met Benedict in 1989 in Johannesburg, South Africa. It was a crazy time there – a state of emergency had been in place for many years, the civil war meant that people were terribly suspicious of each other, there were daily acts of violence – often on commuter trains. The Church was one of the few places where people were allowed to gather to express their public emotion. Many Christians simply opted out of any responsibility towards meaningful political change by becoming what I call ‘pie-in-the-sky-when–I-die’ Christians. In other words, as long as I am right with Jesus, and know Jesus as my personal saviour, it really doesn’t matter what goes on around me. There is a surprisingly lot of that sort of thinking going on among Christian people.
St Benedict also lived in a crazy mixed-up violent world. He too opted out of society, as many of his generation did, and gathered together a group of monks. Benedict wrote a little book, a collection of rules for living together in community. It has come down to us as the Rule of Benedict; and has been the foundation document for almost all western Christian monastic communities since the 6th century. One of the genius’s of Benedict is that he did not encourage people to live as individuals, but as members of close-knit communities – hence his Rule.
Fundamental to the Benedictine community is the Opus Dei – the work of God. This consists in the regular daily praying of services and prayers – in a monastic setting, seven times a day. (Just yesterday I spent a few moments in the Trappist Monastery as I walked across the hill from Discovery Bay to Mui Wo.) Nothing must interfere with this primary task of a monk. They are there to worship God and so feed the soul.
However, Benedict also recognized that it is important to feed the mind – and study, especially careful reading of the Bible, became a 2nd element of monastic life. And just as important as feeding soul and mind was the nurturing of the Body. Every monk had to take his share in the manual work of the monastery. (Think how different our lives might be if, instead of taking a cab to the gym or pool we did the housework at home as a way of getting daily exercise!!!!)
There is a remarkable sense of balance here – as the Benedictine monk ensured that time was given for the feeding of the soul, the mind and the body! Worship, study and physical activity – not a bad formula for a happy and balanced life.
But there is more. Today when we think of monastic vows we think poverty, chastity and obedience. These three are a much later development. Benedict had his monks take three slightly different vows.
First was a vow of stability. The monk promised to commit himself to one particular place for life! Benedict has terrible things to say about those who wander around all over the place, never really contributing anything of value, simply taking what they want. This concept is a real challenge to us today – we live in a world where travel is easier, faster and cheaper than ever. Yet there are people who are able to maintain a sense of stillness and wholeness, even when they are moving from one continent to another. Archbishop Desmond Tutu is one such I have had the privilege of meeting. When Christine and I looked at leaving our country of birth we identified our culture as that of the Anglican Church – and found a measure of stability in that.
Second is the vow of obedience. Benedict was very aware just how often the Bible entreats people to listen, to hear, to open their ears. In Latin the word for obedience and the word meaning to listen come from the same root. To listen, to really listen and act on what one hears, is to obey. The ancient Jews were constantly reminded they had to listen to God: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is One – you shall have no other gods but me.” And Jesus frequently called on those who have ears to hear, to listen.
Obedience and Stability are not terribly popular concepts these days. Both seem to be a little old-fashioned, rooted in the past. The third Benedictine vow is sometimes translated from the Latin as ‘continual conversion’. It contains the sense of being constantly open to the disturbing, challenging, unsettling nature of the Holy Spirit. And all three vows are important, all three act in tension and in balance. And of course there is a wonderful paradox between stability and continual conversion.
By now you will have recognised the familiar pattern of the Trinity. When Christians talk about God – we mean God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit; Creator, Redeemer and Giver of Life. Focus on only one aspect of God and we do not have the Trinity – we have a lop-sided God. One ancient symbol of the Trinity has the word God in the centre of a Triangle; at each point is the word Father, Son and Holy Spirit; a line runs from each of the outside points to the centre word “God’, and contains the word ‘is’. So the Father is God, the Son is God, the Spirit is God. Along the outer lines are the words ‘is not’. The Father is not the Son; the Son is not the Spirit; the Spirit is not the Father.
To be a complete monk Benedict expected stability, obedience and continual conversion; just as he expected worship, study and manual work.
As I think about Faith in the City, and Theology in the Market Place, I want to look for the balance that Benedict was so keen on. I guess it is relatively easy to be a Christian on Sundays, or when I go to church. It is easy too to be good at my work, especially if I enjoy it and am well-rewarded. It is easy to be a good parent, husband, wife, sister, when I am on holiday, or at home (at least on the first day or two of Chinese New Year). But am I able to balance being a Christian, and being good at my work, and being a nice person with family and friends? Am I able to bring the insights of the Bible – especially those difficult and challenging Old Testament concepts such as justice and integrity, the caring for the widow and orphan, the loving of God and neighbour – into the decision-making processes which might involve millions of dollars and put hundred of thousands of people at risk? What difference does the teaching of Jesus in the Beatitudes found in Matthew 5 make to the way business deals are signed, staff are treated, or the language I use when things are not going my way?
I live in an extremely secular society. My Cathedral is right opposite the Houses of Parliament. Yet it is easy to get so caught up in the things I am doing that I forget about the legislation being debated across the road – topics that should be of vital interest to any concerned Christian: the so-called three strikes law which aims at much tougher sentencing, despite overwhelming evidence that longer prison sentences do not make for reformed criminals; issues concerning land and water rights; the always vexed question of taxes, and most latterly increased sales-tax on every purchase. At the early Wednesday morning Eucharist we try to make a point of praying for those who are members of parliament, and the many civil servants who work in the office blocks which flank the Cathedral, many of whom walk past it twice a day, some popping in for a few minutes of prayer. In my preaching and teaching I try to interpret the ancient Bible stories and teaching of Jesus into today’s context – not always easy, especially when some are tempted to take a very literalist and fundamentalist approach.
Despite the secular nature of NZ society, perhaps because of it, people come to the Cathedral for special events – Remembrance Sunday and the Commonwealth Observance; just a few weeks ago we held a very special service in thanksgiving for families involved in organ donation. It is very moving to have two groups of people in the congregation – one group there because the death of a loved one means life for others who are also present. When the Boxing Day Tsunami struck a few years ago people poured into the Cathedral to light candles, say prayers. One diplomat was in tears – so far from home, yet feeling there were people who cared. A friend of mine who is both a doctor and a priest has just returned from six weeks in Haiti – where he and a medical team have been doing relief work. A few months ago I happened to meet a senior police officer. When he discovered where I worked he said to me: You have no idea how important that Cathedral is to us at police head-quarters. What did he mean? Is it that it stands as a reminder of something, someone, beyond ourselves? If a building can be such a reminder, how much more can a Christian presence be in an office or company?
These sorts of things are the obvious stuff of Cathedrals. But it is the daily engagement with the world that is the stuff of Public Theology – and that is where you, the people who work in business, banking and law-making, the teachers and councilors, engineers and nurses, the managers and administrators – come in. For you St Benedict has a challenge too – to get the balance right between what you do in your work life and what you do at home or with friends, what you profess on Sunday and the way you behave the rest of the week. It begins with that little word ‘listen’ and progresses into obedience. Always, we must remain open to the voice of God in the Holy Spirit – often coming at an inopportune time.
In a couple of hours time I will be on an aeroplane heading back to a New Zealand winter. You will be back in your offices. Take a moment to think of one thing that I have said this afternoon that has caught your imagination – and hold it in your head for a few moments.
