Holy grace in an untidy church

Introduction

This paper was given at the Society for the Study of Theology Conference 'Thinking the Church' and takes as its starting point comments made by the Archbishop of Canterbury in his presidential address to General Synod in February 2014. Justin Welby spoke of the need for a massive cultural change with the Church of England, so that people could flourish together despite deeply held differences. That shift is a journey of learning to live as an 'untidy church': learning to love those with whom we disagree and seeking mutual flourishing, rooted in what the Archbishop calls 'holy grace'.

I begin by setting out the challenges and hopes of his address. It is a vision that resists perpetuating the fearful denigration of the other; to sustain it we need resources which prevent us lapsing into idealism which is readily abandoned. I wonder if Dan Hardy's work on the nature of holiness might help us here. His description of divine holiness as a refining fire which heals fragmentations is challenging and compelling.

Holiness understood as transformative and performative leads to consideration of two questions: firstly, how might the dynamics of holiness increase our capacity to live with untidiness within the life of the church? Secondly, how is holiness embodied in such a way that it becomes a movement of hope in the world?

Prayer - Chris Gollon (2009)

The address

Archbishop Justin uses the five principles agreed by the House of Bishops (in relation to the
legislation to women and the episcopate) as an example of how love and trust work: ‘the love has to
be demonstrated and the trust has to be earned. But the love cannot be demonstrated if it is refused
and the trust cannot be earned without the iterative process of it being received and reinforced in the
reception.’ This might be described as a practice of holiness.

The ‘massive cultural change’ necessary for the living out of ‘a commitment to the flourishing of
every tradition of the church’ means accepting that those with whom we disagree are ‘deeply loved
by Christ and therefore must be deeply loved by me’. For him, the ‘gift that Christ gives us, of loving us to the end, to the ultimate degree is meaningless unless that love is both given and received, and
then passed on’. Holy grace is cruciform: we are held and moved by God’s holiness in worship,
participating in the refining fire 'as it has occurred in the Cross of Christ’ (Hardy, Finding, p. 20.).

Loving in this way is a difficult and risky calling. The Archbishop speaks about the need for integrity,
transparency and honesty; about doing what we do out of love. Such practices are societal patterns
needed to create trust. So we ask with Dan, what difference does worship make in cultivating
holiness? (Hardy, Finding, pp. 22-23.).  Might a ‘holy trust’ equip us to face disagreement and crisis in the hope of healing.

Holiness and healing do not equate to ‘tidiness’. The Archbishop said that an untidy church tells the
world 'holy grace' rather ‘consistency and coherence' is the ultimate virtue’. The Church of England’s
untidiness is reflected in lobbies and groups within and beyond the synodical structures of
governance and episcopal collegiality. When these things work well, love overcomes fear; but often
the opposite is the case. To acknowledge that the ‘resources of love lie within God hints at the
performative nature of holiness. That is an encounter with divine promise and assurance in worship,
in penitence and faith. Such love is demanding. It is a process of gracious reconciliation which is
cruciform.

Many of the issues which are centre stage engender fear: fear of rejection and irrelevance, the limits
of authority and generosity. Yesterday's headlines about GAFCON show just how acute and corrosive
these fears are. Perhaps Dan’s legacy will edge us beyond tribalism towards a holy and gracious
church. A church that is not preoccupied with its own inner life, but called outwards by the Spirit to a
creative vision for the sake of God's kingdom.

A refining fire - nature of holiness, human and divine

In Finding the Church Dan states that ‘holiness, sociality and worship are – or should be – extremely
rich and powerful notions and practices, and therefore capable of orientating vast ranges of life in the
world’ (Hardy, Finding, p. 8). He warns against supposing that it can be fully grasped – theoretically or ethically. Whilst heading this warning against domesticating such vision, we hold on to the challenge of how such practices change us and deepen our engagement with the world, not least because for Dan the church is constituted by mission and worship.

To begin with, how does Dan's understanding of holiness relate to the scope of God’s work in
creation and salvation? The gift of creaturely freedom is risky: our desires are misdirected, our lives
dispersed and fragmented; we are in danger of losing the sense of God’s presence with us (Hardy, Wording, p. 68.). ‘Extensity’ names this spread-out-ness in the world - our human propensity to get caught up in things. 'Intensity’ describes God’s self-movement of love towards the world – in creation, redemption, the perfection of human life in the world (Hardy, Finding, p. 34.) This intensity calls forth a response. Dan uses Coleridge’s term ‘abduction’ to describe the dynamics of this attraction to God. This attraction is cultivated and sustained in worship as we a turned away from self-absorption, as we participate in God's ways, as our desires are reformed.

Might this be a holy grace for an untidy church?

For Dan holiness and God are mutually defining: holiness is the attraction to God, which calls and
moves people; it is beautiful, satisfying and humbling; relational and performative ( Hardy, Finding, p. 12.).  It is rooted in the triune God. Dan says: the property of holiness is one of ‘intrinsic relation to all else… then holiness is intrinsically triadic… the Trinity immanent in God is his consistent performance of holiness, but this is maintained – as the Trinitarian economy in the world – through God’s energetic congruence with the world’ (Hardy, Finding, pp. 14-16.).

‘Facing the holiness of God, and performing it within human social life, is the special provenance of
worship. There all the interrelated dimensions of life are raised to the holiness of God’ (Hardy, Finding, p.19.). It is not merely routine human activity. God’s ‘formative, freeing and energizing attraction’ shapes us (Hardy, Finding, p. 20.). Worship is a crucible which enacts and extends holiness, which heals fragmentation of our extensity.  Might, in the words of Barbara Pym, our 'incremental shifts in virtue' be an outworking of holiness, in Christ, in anticipation of the Kingdom?


Increasing our capacity to live with untidiness

How might the dynamics of holiness increase our capacity to live with untidiness within the church?

For Dan, the Eucharist is an occasion of performing – and thus learning – the quality of God’s
holiness in action, whose implication are seen as it reconstitutes the life of those involved, forming
their multifold interactions with others.’ It counteracts fear and cultivates love (Hardy, Finding, p. 21.).  Might it also be a place where holiness is kindled not as a list of prohibited or acceptable actions, but as a way of being in relationship?

In Finding the Church, Dan describes the way in which trust liberates us to act without fear; it is a
sign of love which we give to others. It shapes and enriches our relationships, creating what Dan calls
'moral density'. If human flourishing is ordinarily dependent on stability and systems of
accountability, what difference does worship make?

How might the Eucharist enact a 'holy trust' as we are confronted with the 'refining fire' of divine
holiness? Divine intensity is the response to our extensity. Dare we approach worship in the
expectation that God will establish and transform our relationships as the cruciform fire of God's
holiness refines us?

Archbishop Justin criticised sermons offering the moral claptrap of niceness. Rather we are drawn
into a moral density is enacted in the sacrifice of Christ, which we call holy grace. Living this out in
the life of the Church is difficult and demands patience and attentiveness, which stretches our human
capacity. But our capacity is stretched by placing our assurance in God’s holiness. Only then can we
live with untidiness; waiting for difference to become a gift.

This increased capacity to disagree well in an untidy church sounds idealist. Dan himself was not
naïve about the cost in his work within Anglican Communion on issues of sexuality, gender, the
interpretation of Scripture and authority. He continually reignites our imaginations as we seek holy
grace in an untidy church. Let’s for a moment consider the reality of a local church in crisis and
discover the possibility of healing and the balm of spirit.

In Wording a Radiance, Dan describes the way in which the pastor opens herself to be an agent of
transforming and healing spirt. Individuals might then shift from being passive recipients to active
agents of the Spirit: Dan describes this as a turning from 'self-attraction to divine attraction and thus
attraction to others' (Hardy, Wording, p. 107.). It is not immediate, simple or straightforward; it is not mere choice or will. It is the central drama of our ecclesiology: 'when a pilgrim's openness to the Spirit is met by the Spirit and 'other' replaces 'self' as the object of attraction. This is not the end of the drama but the beginning: an opening for attraction to meet attraction and, with the balm of the Spirit, for a wounded Church to walk with Jesus' (Hardy, Wording, p. 107.).

It is difficult and time consuming. Holy grace demands that we deepen bonds of mutual trust and
affection by improving the quality of our disagreements. Holy grace in an untidy church means living
in the hope of healing. Dan has a word for this too: he calls it ‘granulation’, a healing from deep
within. When intransigent problems and differences are centre stage, they consume our energy.
Confronting the holiness of God in worship creates space and gives us the assurance to take risks,
with patience and generosity. It does so because our attention refocused on the glory and light of
God, whose kingdom ‘is not a matter of our working out every detail of how to move on; we need to
leave room for the Spirit to work’(Hardy, Wording, p. 105.).

Holiness - a movement of hope

Enriched by the Spirit, how is holiness embodied in the world as a movement of hope?

In Finding, Dan talks about holiness of God demanding the proper interaction between ecology,
history and culture; and social institutions playing a key role in the performance of holiness as
‘provisional approximations to the good’. In Wording, sociopoesis (the creating of the social)
emerges from his discussion of the way in which holiness is enacted in the world. Dan's
diagrammatic representation of this demonstrates a two-way dynamic, under God for the sake of the
Kingdom.

If facing holiness in worship cultivates generosity, trust and reconciliation in the face of disagreement, it becomes both a gift and challenge to the world. Rather than becoming overly concerned with our own ‘inner meaning’, how do learn afresh how to persist with our task in the world? What might be the signs of hope for the world of this holy, graced and untidy church?

Archbishop Justin spoke about letting go of the absolutes of coherence and consistency; but I
wonder what that might look like in term of holiness conceived as a mode of engagement.
Commitment to facilitated conversations and the Archbishop's frankness over Wonga might be
examples of that.

Risking incoherence and inconsistence might be part of our prophetic calling. If our assurance is
located in God - in his holiness - we increase our capacity to live with difference. Life is not tidier or
less complicated, but with God centre stage when we abide in the perfect, holy and refining love that
casts out fear. Holy grace in an untidy church is cultivated in worship, but it is also about witness.

The body of Christ radiating the light and love of God for sake of the Kingdom; opening up true potential of human life. As Dan puts it:'Liturgy is one way of facilitating and helping people enter into this creative dynamic and drawing them deeper into the light, letting it penetrate and irradiate them. But this opening is certainly not exclusive to the Church: there are lots of other ways, too, and we need to recognize and interpret them in public life. It is about how the Church relates to the world (16 Hardy, Wording, p. 106.).

If Dan was renowned for acknowledging the complexity of that, he was also renowned for calling us back to the unfolding work of the Spirit.


© 2015 Julie Gittoes

Desire and love that reaches out to us when we fall

Laura?
Yes, dear.
Whatever your dream was, it wasn't a very happy one, was it?
No.

So begin the closing moments of Brief Encounter. It evokes an era which feels remote to us now. The defined gender roles, social conventions, style of dress and clipped RP accents become the stuff of parody. Yet it's a film which evokes the intensity of human feeling: the longing of Laura and Alec, from their serendipitous meeting until their disrupted parting moment, is captivating.  The Rachmaninov stirs us as we are swept up in their smouldering passion; the romance of steam trains and the desolation of lashing rain; the ordinariness of routine and the ease with with which we do the very thing that we hate and regret.

I ran until I couldn't run any longer. I leaned against a lamp post to try to get my breath... I know it was stupid to run but I couldn't help myself. I felt so utterly humiliated and defeated and so dreadfully dreadfully ashamed.

Having fled the apartment, Laura's voiceover reflects on her response to the interrupted rendezvous with Alec. She rings her husband, compounding her guilt and shame, saying: it's awfully easy to lie when you know you're trusted implicitly. She finds herself at the foot of the War Memorial and sits down.  The disruption of her personal and family life and her inner turmoil are evident.  A policeman approaches - her guilt is magnified as he eyes her suspiciously. Confronted by this tangible representation of law enforcement, she feels like a criminal. She is no longer law-abiding.

The dramatic narrative of Brief Encounter draws us into exactly the dilemma that Paul finds himself wrestling with in Romans.  A few verses earlier he acknowledges that the commandments are good and holy; the law itself is of spiritual value. Yet, like the archetypal bobbie, who asks Laura if she's feeling alright, the law reveals our human frailty. It reveals our propensity to make a mess of things. We know what is right - and we long to do it. Yet we don't do it.  Our own actions are a mystery to us.

Laura reflects on her relationship with Alec, describing what they have done as being cheap and low. Alec himself says: the feeling of guilt is and doing wrong is too strong isn't it. The prospect of separation also brings a violent wretchedness, even to the point of Laura wanting to die. Trembling on the platform edge, she faces the overwhelming desire not to feel anything ever again.

The noise of the train roaring and screeching through the station; the flickering lights in the carriages; the clattering wheels: there is no other sound track to this moment of despair.  I am of the flesh sold into slavery under sin. I do not understand my own actions. I do the very thing that I hate... I do not do the good I want.

Such moments of crisis are not unknown to us - personally, pastorally, collectively.  Perhaps they are less dramatic: the inability to delight in others, but rather to undermine them; the moments we lose patience with the person who frustrates us; our persistence in pursuing desires which end up possessing us; our institutional anxiety that makes us desperate, undermining our capacity to tell the compelling good news of salvation.

Paradoxically, this expression of our embodiment - our very fleshly nature - is a consequence of the overflow of love and freedom in creation.  Our creatureliness is good; yet we get caught up in 'stuff' that redirects our desires.  The priest and theologian Dan Hardy has a word for this: he calls it extensity. The risk of the gift of creaturely freedom is that as we are sent forth, we are drawn outward; this 'spread-out-ness' means we are in danger of losing the sense of God's presence with us.

We are overwhelmed with choice and our desires are ignited by new and exotic things.  Our increasingly dispersed lives, no longer fully centred on God, leaves us feeling at the mercy of the law of our minds. Lest we think that consumerism, promiscuity, fragmentation and injustice are twenty-first century concerns, we only have to revisit our first lesson.  Jeremiah challenges God's people over their abandonment of God's law, their stubbornness and refusal to listen. Rather than worshipping the Lord their God, they worship other gods, indeed any gods.

The consequences of this 'spread-out-ness' are dire: Jeremiah gives voice to a very physical disruption of life in terms of the loss of land and heritage. This expresses a spiritual dislocation. The people called to be holy and beloved, the people called to bring light to the nation, are cast adrift. How can they retain their identity and purpose apart from the God who is holy?

The response of a faithful God, a God of covenant and promise, is to seek out his people. He will bring them back - like a fisherman or a hunter.  God reaches out to us.  Our iniquities are not concealed, nor can we hid from God's love. Dan Hardy has a word for this too. He calls it intensity.  By that he means God's self-movement of love towards the world - in creation and redemption, in the ongoing perfection of human life in the world.  Such love is attractive and compelling; we are drawn to the light.  We are gradually turned away from self-absorption back towards attentiveness to God, and to right relationship with others.

Jeremiah's exhortation affirms that nature of God offering strength and refuge in the midst of trouble. Alongside the hope of restoration of God's people, we glimpse a vision of universal scope:   to  you, O Lord, shall the nations come.  The consequences of sin are corrosive on human hearts and within communities. But this extensity is met by intensity.  Wretched man, writes Paul, who will rescue me from this body of death?   Then wretchedness turns to praise: thanks be to God, through Jesus Chr ist our Lord.  In him there is no more condemnation.

In Christ, God dwells with us.  In his life, death and resurrection, the power of God breaks in.  In face to face encounters men and women find healing, purpose and dignity.  In teaching and proclamation, in acts of justice, compassion and reconciliation,  the proximity of God's Kingdom is made known. Our human brokenness is named; our failure to fulfil the demands of the law is evident.  Yet, that failure is not the final word.

Rather in the midst of the complexity of our lives - our loves, joys, sorrows and burdens - we are assured of forgiveness. We are called to respond to this in a spirit of repentance: returning and resting in God's love. On the cross God's Son defeats the power of sin and death; in the resurrection the promise of new life and abundant life is revealed.

As T. S. Eliot expresses it:  we become renewed, transfigured, in another pattern./Sin is Behovely, but/ All shall be well, and / all manner of thing shall be well... All manner of thing shall be well / By the purification of the motive / In the ground of our beseeching.

As God's people that hope of being redeemed from fire by fire is expressed in our worship: as we share in praise and prayer, bread and wine our humanity is transformed because we are confronted with the holiness of God - in power, might, strength and love. Our appetites and longings become desire for God and for the well being of the other. We are caught up in God's involvement in the world - not in our own strength, but in the power of the Spirit. Paul goes on to dwell on this new life in subsequent chapters - knowing that all creation groans with longing for the fulfilment of this promise; knowing that whatever assails us, nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

That love is the source of our values - the virtues we learn incrementally.  Sometimes we speak about them in terms of the fruit of the Spirit - love and joy, patience and self-control.  On other occasions we explore the particular charisms of an institution - perhaps a corporate commitment to the formation of a diverse community, which handles disagreement by means of honest, generous and transformative conversation.   Day by day, we are called to pay a deep attention to God in prayer and worship, and we are also called to deep engagement with the world.

Our work, hobbies, relationships and passions will draw us into a range of networks and responsibilities. Wherever we find ourselves, we are to speak and act with integrity and creativity; improvising on the love of God within which we abide.  We are to be a sign of God's love in a world in which disrupted desires are not as romantic as Laura's passion, but the heart break as great.  In the face of human fears we bring the promise of peace.  With joyful hearts proclaim afresh in this generation the good news of salvation.

© 2015 Julie Gittoes