'THERE IS MORE TO LIFE AND TO HUMAN FULFILLMENT THAN ACCESS TO MATERIAL THINGS': ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGH PREACHES AT PRO-CATHEDRAL FOR CHRISTIAN UNITY WEEK

At a service in the Roman Catholic St Mary’s Pro-Cathedral in Dublin, the Archbishop of Armagh, the Most Revd Alan Harper urged that churches should “in generosity, be pursuing harmony and peace with one another” and should jointly be addressing what he described as “the ‘Me More’ syndrome of Western Capitalism.” He said “there is more to life and human fulfillment than access to material things.”

The service, which marked the start of the week of prayer for Christian Unity took place on Friday 18 January 2008 at 8.00pm.

On the theme of Christian Unity, the Archbishop said that while “progress has stalled” with the ecumenical project, “what has not stalled is the effort we put into the work of maintenance and mission in our several, individual denominational homes.” While saying that this “is not in itself a bad thing” he continued, “we will falter… when we allow the ecumenical mission to enjoy a lower order of priority and engagement than we are prepared to devote to purely denominational objectives.” Concluding on the topic, the Archbishop said “only through a commitment to mutual respect and parity of esteem can love and trust flourish. Only through love and trust can unity become a lived reality.”

Turning to “the parlous state of our developing common life on this island and beyond” the Archbishop quoted the prophet Haggai who told people in the Old Testament “You have sown much and harvested little; you eat but you never have enough; you drink but you never have your fill; you clothe yourselves but no one is warm”. Referring to obesity, binge drinking and profligacy in western society, the Archbishop said “we are discovering that conspicuous consumption brings no contentment” and asked “Are these not the issues towards which the churches together should seek jointly to respond?”

Address by the Archbishop of Armagh, the Most Revd Alan Harper
in the Pro-Cathedral, Dublin
on the 18 January 2008, 8.00pm
for the Start of Christian Unity Week

Anyone who proposed a week of prayer for anytime at all, let along Christian Unity, during the very dreariest time of the year must have had more faith than common sense!

It is hard to escape the view that the healing of divisions would be much better prayed for, and must more divinely symbolised at Pentecost with its focus upon mutual comprehension and common proclamation than a week in late January.

Were it not for the hope of a Damascus Road experience in the hearts of the people of God incorporating a turning away from division, which is a persecution of the Body of Christ, and turning towards unity, which is the healing of the Body of Christ, the timing of the week of prayer would be unrelievedly hopeless.

My colleague Richard Clarke, Bishop of Meath and Kildare, has written of “our Christian duty and vocation to recover the sense of an ecumenical adventure”. I agree with him and want to suggest where it might find contemporary inspiration: normal in the words of the prophet Haggai.

Haggai spoke insistently and critically to those former exiles, returned to Jerusalem in the time of Cyrus and established in security during the reign of Darius:

Jerusalem has been restored;
prosperity has returned;
the economy is booming;
property is opulent;
the economic miracle – let me call it the lion of Judah – roars ahead full tilt;
but all is far from well.

In the midst of so much prosperity the rebuilding of the Temple has stalled. It remains incomplete, unroofed. Listen now to the words of Haggai the Prophet:

“Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your panelled houses while his house lies in ruins?... Consider how you have fared. You have sown much and harvested little; you eat but you never have enough; you drink but you never have your fill; you clothe yourselves but no one is warm; and he who earns wages earns wages to put them into a bag with holes …… Consider how you have fared. Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house that I may take pleasure in it and that I may appear in my glory” says the Lord.

This clarion call from the prophet Haggai speaks to us in not one but in two ways. First let me speak of its message for us as we pray together for Christian Unity. The ruinous and barely half restored Jerusalem Temple is an image of the Church of God – erected in unity at Pentecost but damaged by neglect, division and controversy. No longer ago than last month rival Christians came to blows in the Church of the Nativity itself over whose right it was to clean a particular, disputed, area of the basilica. It required an intervention from the secular authorities – mostly Muslim – to bring the fracas to a conclusion.

The incident itself is not important; what it symbolises is, namely the enthusiasm for quarrel and contention when we should in generosity be pursuing harmony and peace. Differences of perspective, interpretation, insight and understanding will always emerge, and it is good that they do, for that invites serious and thoughtful engagement. What need not arise is the mistaken view that unity and uniformity are one and the same.

The closest human union that I can know is that which I share with my wife – we differ on many things in life, sometimes quite stridently, but the unity that we have, nurtured in love and trust, sustain and fulfil us with no requirement for the rigidities of uniformity. When necessary we agree to differ.

A century ago the ecumenical project set out to repair the ruinous Temple – the divided and quarrelsome Church of God. Progress has stalled.

What has not stalled is the effort we put into the work of maintenance and mission in our several, individual denominational homes.

In itself this is not a bad thing. We are called to be an apostolic people, sent out in Christ’s name to share the Gospel and the grave of the Kingdom. We do it in the way that represents the nuances and perspectives we derive from our own tradition.

We falter, however, when we fall victim to the notion that any one tradition is possessed of a monopoly of the truth.

We falter also if we allow the ecumenical mission – the mission to heal the wounds in the Body of Christ through the quest for deeper unity and the application of the ethic of parity and esteem, when we allow the ecumenical mission to enjoy a lower order of priority and engagement than we are prepared to devote to purely denominational objectives.

Please observe: I am not arguing for any abrogation of principle. There can be no meaningful ecumenical engagement that avoids issues of principle. But it is important to understand that engagement and dialogue are fatally compromised when the parties do not enter that engagement respectful of the principled position of others and committed to an outcome that ensures and safeguards parity of esteem.

Only through a commitment to mutual respect and parity of esteem can love and trust flourish. Only through love and trust can unity become a lived reality.

It is not sufficient for the proclamation of the gospel that your house and my house should be handsomely maintained and luxuriously appointed when the Temple itself is unroofed and a standing reproach to those who profess the Gospel of Salvation by grace through faith in Christ’s name.

I said that the clarion call of Haggai speaks to our contemporary condition in two ways, the first being the distressing disunity of the Church.

It speaks, secondly, to the parlous state of our developing common life on this island and beyond.

Pope Benedict spoke recently in trenchant terms about the evils attendant upon globalisation. Well, we too have learned to be part of the “me more” syndrome in Western capitalism. Our priorities are increasingly priorities of self – gratification to the exclusion of higher concerns and yet we are discovering that conspicuous consumption brings no contentment.

you eat but you never have enough
you drink but you never have your fill

Starvation is not the disease of our society, obesity is. In the United States of America I am told 2m people weigh over 40 stones. The UK may well by now be proportionately equal to the US. Premature death through obesity in the West may come to match premature death through malnutrition in the developing world.

Binge drinking and alcohol related disease in the West is become as much a cause of premature death as lack of access to clean water in developing countries.

Are these not issues towards which the churches together should seek jointly to respond?

“You clothe yourselves”, Haggai said, “and no one is warm;” and he who earns wages earns wages to put them in a bag with holes.”

Observe the irony: while the glossies and the Sunday press hail the next “must have” fashion style, Trinny and Susannah ruthlessly dictate to some hapless fashion victim “what not to wear”. And, by the way, you and I indulge our voyeuristic tendencies by watching the ritual humiliation.

Then, of course, the money – more of it than we have ever experienced before – runs through our fingers as we require more and more of it to satisfy our profligacy. Indeed, without such profligacy, we are told, the economy would crumble. Gordon Gecko lives, greed is good.

I need to be clear that what I say is not meant as an attack upon the wealth creating potential of the capitalist system as such. It is, however, a comment upon the total inability of any economic system to deliver satisfaction or fulfilment. There is more to life and to human fulfilment than access to material things.

That “more” has to do with aspects of reality that mankind requires but cannot achieve of or from himself. Whether or not the things of the Spirit can be closely defined or the reality of God made susceptible to demonstration, without God the hunger of humanity for meaning, for communion, for a vision worthy of worship, for a context for creation, without God these are unsatisfiable. How vital, therefore, that the only witness to the perfect and most complete revelation of God, expressed in the person of Jesus Christ, should ensure that its witness is not enfeebled or compromised by division.

I look at the world that God has caused to come into being: its rich diversity, its energising and inspiring pluriformity, the harmony and the integrity of its interdependence, and I am inspired to the deepest awe and wonder.

I look at the Church which God in Christ through the Holy Spirit has called into being: its diversity, its pluriformity, a rich expression of the variety exhibited by humanity itself yet confessing a common belief and understanding framed in the terms of the Catholic Creeds, and I observe that the one thing that is lacking is that harmony and interdependence that should shape us in the image of God who is by revelation a Trinitarian community.

If the prayer of Christ, uttered in the hearing of he trusted disciples, that they should be one as he and his father are one,

if that prayer does not stir us to harmony might not the state of our society stir us to renewed commitment to each other for the sake of the world and its unsatisfied longings?

And if even this will not call us into harmonious co-operation in a common mission then let us declare the death of faith and arrange for the burial of the corpse of the community we call Church.

Better, however, if together we go up into the hills and bring wood and build the house so that god may take pleasure in it and therein appear in his glory to the focus of life for the people of a revitalised land.

Consider, said Haggai, “Consider how you have fared!”

- ENDS –