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JULY/AUGUST 2009 - THE DEAN WRITES

UNIVERSITY CHALLENGE
Address given by the Dean at the Festal Evensong on June 7th, marking the 105th Anniversary of the Consecration of the Nave of the Cathedral.

The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland is perhaps at first sight the most unlikeliest of events at which to finalise one thought’s on an address marking an Anglican Cathedral’s 105th Anniversary. Last week I attended the Assembly as one of two delegates from the Church of Ireland and had the unique privilege of addressing that body.

We were most graciously and hospitably received and Roberta, my wife, was included in the invitations to the assembly, and the associated receptions. It was an assembly which for me had many pluses - in the manner of its deliberations on the vexed issue of the Presbyterian Mutual Society, in the thought which had been given to education in schools, and in the training and in-service provision for serving clergy.

But there were two things above all else which made impact with me. One was the manner in which the presbytery of South Belfast presented a scheme to unite Ulsterville Church on the Lisburn Road with that of Windsor further up the road. Both ministers spoke in the most gracious terms about the proposed union, and the minister of Ulsterville outlined with clarity the reasons for the growth and decline of the numbers of people in the congregation over the past century - over the same period that this cathedral has stood. A very difficult decision was made with clarity and charity in response to the mission of the church in that area. Changed times demanded changed relationships and changed mindsets.

The second aspect of the Assembly which inspired me and provoked me to think was the style of worship and the reception of the new assistant ministers.

In my childhood and teenage years I had quite an exposure to Presbyterian worship. I like the cadences of its metrical psalms, and I even learned voluntarily for my own spiritual nourishment a couple of paraphrases - passages of the bible in metrical form which were sung. Worship in the Churches I visited in my teenage years were quite formal. Ministers wore Geneva gowns and preaching bands.

At the assembly, apart from the formal opening service, clerical collars were notable by their absence. In the hot weather, open-necked shirts and slacks were the order of the day. The hymns were projected on overhead screens, the music was led by a small orchestral group, and the beat was definitely up and uplifting. Some of it was not my type of music, but you could not avoid either the sincerity or the commitment in the worship. That was infectious. And I could not help but relate that to the long line of junior ministers who were being recognised by the Assembly at the beginning of their ordained service. All young men and women who were academically well qualified for their ordination.

What I saw was a national church in renewal. The Scots Presbyterian heritage as rooted in Ireland seemed to me to be confident in its faith, developing in its worship, and as determined as ever to serve and challenge this community by its faith in Jesus Christ.

We too have a long heritage. We are gathered here today to celebrate 105 years of worship in this cathedral, and to recall before God the 128 years of worship before that in the Parish Church of St Anne.

In conversation over lunch with an old friend, The Rev Doug Baker, a Presbyterian from the US who served in Corrymeela and settled here, I was gently challenged to describe where we here are in our ministry. I witnessed to our determination to be a place of spiritual hospitality; to welcome all; to enable civic organisations to worship and celebrate their identities and anniversaries; to ensure that daily prayers are offered and that the eucharist is available week by week; that a choral standard is maintained with all its attendant work with choristers and other young people.

And yet, as I described to Doug our need to raise £1,000 each day simply to stand still, I was - and not for the first time - strangely disquieted because Doug was scratching where I have been itching prior to the Assembly - in fact itching from long before our Easter General Vestry of this year.

There are three words which have been dominating my mind as we approached this anniversary. They  are : Maintenance, Development, and Relevance.

Maintenance - Not surprisingly when you build a cathedral, you create maintenance challenges. No cathedral on this scale is completed without earlier parts needing to be attended to. Stones erode, even as a new spire is raised. Previous Deans have had to lead initiatives to repair the building. And this cycle is overdue. We estimate that there is several million pounds of deferred expenditure at present - on major stone work which should have been done if funds had been available. This threatening challenge still awaits us.

Developments - It is right that we give thanks to God for new developments. Today we have dedicated a new Chapel of the Faithful Departed - and my heart truly rejoices. I know pastorally this new facility will be greatly appreciated by those who mourn in the years to come, and I know already that it is deeply appreciated by those whose relatives are remembered there. I had the most wonderful phone call on Friday morning from Mrs Isabel Crooks, widow of Dean Crooks. She had visited the chapel on a quick visit to Belfast, and she was truly grateful for what has been achieved.

Next Sunday a new window in the sanctuary will be dedicated - marking the service and the generosity of St John’s Ambulance. The ongoing development of the cathedral is a matter of seizing the moment, and of prayerfully doing the opportune thing when and if funds become available.

And these ideas need not necessarily be costly. Certainly there is never a day here when I do not give thanks for the erection of the glass screens at the Chapel of Unity in memory of Dean Shearer. They provide that necessary area of spiritual calm, and especially when the rest of the cathedral is being overrun with the noise of the welcome return of visitors and tourists.

Relevance - relevance to what. There are as many ideas as to what a cathedral is about, as there are individuals. For some it is a certain type of music. For others it is the orderliness of the service. For a small group - perhaps too small a group - it is the ability to worship midweek, to meet at the Lord’s Table on a Wednesday as well as a Sunday. For some it is the services of healing.

But the relevance which must unite us is the Gospel committed to our charge. But by the Gospel alone we will be judged. We will be judged as to what we did with this facility and its £1,000 and rising daily budget. As William Temple said, the test of every minute spent, the test of every penny spent, is whether or not it has forwarded the Kingdom of God. To put it bluntly whether or not it has brought people into a living relationship with Christ, whether or not that living relationship with Christ is self-evident in our relationships with other people; and most importantly - whether or not this cathedral exists for a selfish community - or for the people of this city and wider community whom Christ came to save.

Now to say that is not to simply retreat into pious sounding language. Folks that is where we are. On a good sunday afternoon we get about twenty of thirty at Evensong. Its the choral service which I love most of all. But there is not a big market for it - even amongst some of the very folk in our cathedral community who on occasion can make a big song and dance about the importance of choral music.

Next door to this very building, a lane width away, the University of Ulster is developing. It has announced its intention to relocate most of its Jordanstown campus within walking distance of here. Some 10,000 young people will be on our doorsteps. What an opportunity for Christ and his Church. The challenge as I see it today to the church and the dioceses, to the cathedral community and to those of us whom we know are our friends, is how in Christ’s name do we develop in this cathedral as a missionary community - in spite of our maintenance legacy. How do we learn to sing new songs so that we can bring others to Christ? How can we reach out to them in terms of their culture, their tastes in music and their life’s agenda?

I give thanks for the past of this Cathedral - and I know you do to. I give thanks for the uniqueness of this place, and the acts of worship which in Christ’s name we are privileged to host here. But my friends, I am not blind, we are culturally ill-equipped in this place to reach out to the late teenagers and the young twenty year olds whom God is giving to us as our neighbours.

Will you please help us to celebrate all that this place has achieved for Christ, by praying that we together, in his name, will address the mission which Christ has set before us.

That I believe is the best and only way we can honour him, and keep faith with the saints of this place who have gone before and upon whose heritage we stand together in Christ’s risen and ascended presence. Amen.

WRITING ON THE WALL
First published in the Churches’ feature of The Newsletter, May 2009.

Just within the main doors of Belfast Cathedral are two lists of clergy cut into the stone and highlighted in gold leaf. One is of the Vicars of Belfast which goes back to the original St Anne’s Church which predates even the parish church which stood on the cathedral site from 1770. The other list is that for the Deans of Belfast - from 1904 until today.

I will never forget the day when I walked into the Cathedral and saw the stonemason cutting my name there. I had not known arrangements had been made for this work. It came shortly after my arrival here. It brought with it a sense of the bolt dropping in the door! I had not imagined the moving ceremony of installation. It was a fact - I was here. I really was the dean. This was my post and my current ministry.

We have a small heritage and archives team at the cathedral, and one of them recently has been revising our information on the previous vicars and deans. One was a Cromwellian - even more Presbyterian than Henry Cooke! Some were immanent scholars. One was the son of a refugee Huguenot family which had fled religious persecution in France and was educated in a French speaking school in Lisburn. The son of one richly endowed the library of Trinity College Dublin. Many went on to hold higher offices of ministry in the church. Several of them are sculpted on the tops of the pillars and remembered in various other memorials, windows and side-chapels in the cathedral.

Most of the deans have had to be involved with fund raising. Few cathedrals have ever been built complete. Additions over decades and centuries is more the norm together with the ongoing upkeep costs of a listed building. Anniversaries and developments are celebrated. Next month on June 7, we will celebrate the 105th anniversary of the consecration of the nave - the part where the congregation is seated. We will do so by dedicating a new chapel - “The Chapel of the Faithful Departed”  - in which the ashes of former members of the cathedral community, clergy and laity, will rest. It is a beautiful and necessary development which copes with a very practical problem faced by churches and civic authorities alike. Spiritually and more importantly, it is a reminder that the church on earth and the church triumphant which stands in the innermost presence of God, are inextricably linked.

I find the list of my predecessors inspiring and comforting. Saint Paul reminds me, I am working where they had prepared the ground. Anything constructive that the Good Lord has enabled to happen during my ministry here, whether spiritual or physical, has been based on the ministries of those who have gone before me.

Sometime - whether it be sooner or later is up to God - the stonemason will return and add the date upon which my ministry here will have ended. I hope that with Paul I will be able to say, “I have run the race, I have kept the faith”. Whether our names are engraved on stone or not, what Christ requires of us is that we be found faithful and that we ensure that our name appears in “The Lamb’s Book of Life” in which, written in the blood of Christ, are the names of those who have been saved from sin and death by their belief in Him as the Son of God and the Saviour of the World. That’s the inscription I’m much more interested in.

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