Epiphany
7 (2014) Year A RCL Principal
Foundations, Rules
& Temples
God is here!
Remember that? Those
three words, our words for the presentation, a reminder that God is a part of
our community and found in one another. They aren’t bad words to call to mind
as we go into our Annual Vestry meeting and indeed as I share something of my
understanding of what our Church order and governance consist of .
I should say that
when I put the question out a couple of weeks back ‘would you like me to say
something about what our Church structures are’ the response was quite
overwhelmingly ‘yes please’ in fact I
only had one person say no and that was because, as they said. “People really
should come to the vestry meeting to find out”.
I can see the logic in that, but I think that it might be worth saying
something of why vestry is important to encourage you all to come and take part
in this part of the life of our Church fellowship.
I want to mix this up
a little with my reflections on today’s readings. Because, and this does make me wonder whether
God is just demonstrating her great sense of humour, these readings couldn’t
really be better suited to this vestry Sunday.
St Paul’s first
letter to the Corinthians isn’t a bad reading to begin some thoughts on Church
structures and order. Paul is desperate
for the first fledgling churches to survive and flourish, and recognises that
to achieve this there needs to be some kind of order. In certain parts of these letters to the Corinthians
Paul expresses his concern about the disorder, particularly in worship, that is
putting people off the church – and though Paul’s writings, much to the delight
of many literalists – say things which we might find uncomfortable, the
background is that he longs for the Church to be a shining example of faithfulness,
ordered and exemplars of good conduct – all for the sake of spreading the
Gospel, that people will not be turned off by the chaos of a disordered and (as
he sees it) immoral church! We could
spend a lot of time contextualising, debating, arguing Paul’s teaching, but I
do believe the principle of sound governance isn’t a bad one.
Even more though,
Paul holds the Church up as something rather special. The Church community is a place where the
Spirit dwells – God is here says St
Paul.
What a difference it
would make to all of us if we behaved in such a way that honoured this
fact. That we looked at one another and
said ‘God’s Spirit is in that person’.
I’m not going to
labour the point further, but the basis of Church order is this belief that the
Spirit dwells in each of us, and the desire to be built upon the foundation of
Christ. And St Paul is very keen to talk
about each one of us having our place – you are being built into a living
temple, each one of you living stones(though I pinched that particular phrase
from Peter’s first letter), with the spirit within you. It’s worth noting that the form of the
pronoun ‘you’ is a the plural form here – in verse 16 of Chapter 3 of 1 Corinthians
‘you (all of you) are God’s temple and God lives in you (that’s all of
you). There is something about
acknowledging that the spirit is known in us together as well as individually
that I think is crucial for our understanding of being a community – of being
dedicated to one another in this exciting, but also challenging journey ahead.
Being in community
comes with a cost, a discipline about it.
We are challenged to look beyond ourselves and commit ourselves to this
wider endeavour, this act of being bound together, of loving one another, of
being the body of Christ.
And in this
particular expression of the Church that we call Anglicanism, we have
structures that are meant to help us in that, we have rules called the Canons
which are there to hold the disparate parts of each parish and of the church at
large together, to give us (in the words I have used frequently in the past
months) a sense of the bigger story, and our part within it.
So what do I mean,
you say? Enough about principles and St Paul. What do we do? How is this worked
out? I promised you some info about the governance of the Church so here it
comes.
I must just make a
confession here, though. As an incumbent
and Rural Dean in England I was often called upon to give advice regarding
canon law, because I have a particular interest in these things and a
surprising love of Church Order. For about 13 years I have been offering advice
on the understanding and interpretation of the Canons, the rules and
regulations of the Church, and have made sure I am well versed in the legal
grounding for the Churches structures. I am a canon law nerd. I am, though, learning a new set of canons,
and though I have read and re-read the canon law of the Anglican Church of
Canada and the Diocese of BC, I am not as experienced in them as I am with the
C of E. I read the canons again
yesterday and I am basing this stuff on my newly gained knowledge – apologies
for any gaps… but here we go.
Well, first of all
the Anglican Church is – and I quote, though I am not sure who I quote –
‘Episcopally led and synodically governed’.
That means that the Church heeds the voice of our bishop in whom there
is vested a certain amount of authority.
When we elect a Bishop – with the help of the Holy Spirit – we expect
her, or him, to lead us. The Bishops
hold the role of both leading and serving the Church – they assist in the
formulation and they uphold the canons, they have a pastoral role, they speak
on behalf of the Church and they uphold clergy discipline.
But we are a Church
which also operates with certain democratic or at least pseudo-democratic
structures. The idea of a Synod is a
gathering of the people of God. The word simply means ‘assembly’. It is often used to refer to a gathering of Christian
Leaders, but in our Church we would (taking the principle that we are all
priests and rulers in the church of God) say that the synod is us.
The basic unit of a synod, for all practical purposes, is a Parochial
Council acting on behalf of vestry, the body elected for oversight of the
Church.
Other synods in the
Anglican Church of Canada are the Diocesan Synod which consists of member
selected from parishes and the General Synod which is the gathering of
representatives from all over the Anglican Church of Canada. Ultimately, in partnership with Bishops and
Clergy the Synods officially run the Church. The wider Synods formulate policy
and have responsibility for the finance, discipline, mission and ministry of
the Church. Oh it’s worth saying that
Synods consist of three houses – the Bishops, Clergy and Laity. Usually it is expected on matters of policy
or business that all three houses will vote separately but each must reach a
majority for or against the policy or proposal.
Our Synod is
basically our Vestry, but it would be impractical to meet as the general
gathering of parishioners all of the time, so the Vestry gives authority to the
PC to act as its regular committee.
Alongside that are the Treasurer, Secretary who sit on the PC but don’t
have voting rights unless they are elected as PC members. Then we have the ex officio members: the Diocesan Synod reps who may be the wardens
and maybe one or two others and the Wardens.
We have six Diocesan Synod reps, two from the current PC and the two
wardens and deputy wardens.
And then we have the
delight that is our wardens! Officially
we have two – one people’s warden and one rector’s warden. As might be obvious, the people’s warden is
elected by vestry and the rector’s warden is appointed by the rector. Because of the size and activity of St John’s
we also have two deputies to that position, elected or appointed in the same
way. Wardens are there to support the
Rector – and by extension other Clergy and staff – in making sure the ministry
of the Church continues.
Wardens have a
consultative role and they have legal responsibilities in relation to the
supervision and reporting of financial matters, making sure there is regular
worship and that the Rector is paid and housed. Which is good. The Wardens are to represent the people to
the Rector and the Rector to the people – seeking to consult and consider the
needs of the congregation and to make sure the Rector has what she or he needs
to fulfil their ministry to the Parish.
If things go terribly wrong then the wardens are the ones who report to
the Bishops that there are difficulties and who seek the counsel of the Bishop
for extraordinary needs. They are also the ones who sign contracts on behalf of
their church. Thank God for wardens. And I mean that most sincerely. St John’s wardens have much to bear, and they
have worked diligently in the vacancy and in my first months here to discharge
their responsibilities faithfully, thank you.
So what are we doing
in vestry later on this morning, well after our soup and bun (thank you to
those who have prepared this) we will hear the annual reports of all the
officers and staff of the Church. We will hear about our finances and vote on
our financial report of the last year and on our proposed budget. We will also elect new members to the PC and
hear of the appointment of a new Rector’s warden. Though Wardens can serve for
up to six years, and then have to stand down for a year at least, it has been
usual for wardens here to serve for three years, sometimes four. PC members usually stand for two years
extendable to three. We are electing three new parish council members this year
who will be proposed at vestry by the nominations committee before opening to
the floor. It may be that in the years
to come we need to revisit this method as the church and the world around it
seem to change at a mindboggling speed – but for now we are sticking with this
model which is not dictated by canon but comes within the canonical structure.
There is a
misconception, and it is a misconception, that the PC and wardens are somehow
distinct from the congregation, or (and I have heard the phrase used) they are
‘the suits’ who make decisions in darkened rooms which affect us all. This is not the case – our wardens and our PC
are members of our congregation, faithful members of the everyday life of the
church and they work hard to listen and respond to both encouragements and
criticisms which come from the wider parish – please make use of your PC
representatives and our wardens, they offer themselves graciously in service of
the parish and I know – like all of us – only want the very best for our
Church.
Any questions (it’s
unusual, I know, but I do feel I should allow you to ask for any clarifications
you might need to ask for – though there will be time for that both before and
after vestry)?
I hope this gives
some idea of how we do things, I do want to end by saying a little bit of
why. In our reading from Leviticus we
have a little glimpse of some of the law of the Jewish faith which is the
foundation of our own faith. You might
question both with regards to the canons and structures of the church and in this
passage why we take any account of the law at all because surely Jesus takes
away all that need to follow the Hebrew law?
Well, that’s a good point, but it is important to note that these
structures, these laws are for our benefit – not to constrain but to free us
from the fear of knowing what we can and can’t do. They take away the uncertainty and
subjectivity of the way we often act and offer us a shape and boundaries to our
activities.
The reasoning behind
the Jewish law was to give the people of God standards to live by – which is
why in our lesson from Leviticus we don’t just get a bit of religious
mumbo-jumbo but real, challenging, practical demands – do not defraud, take
care of the needy by allowing them to share in your harvest, nurture and make
allowances for the physically less able, don’t hate, learn to live together.
Follow God’s standards.
It comes back to our
calling to live together in love, to see Christ in one another, to recognise
the Spirit between and within us. And as
human beings we sometimes forget how to do that, we sometimes need the checks
and balances that these structures provide.
And behind all this, if we were to delve into our Gospel (which I will
do only for a moment) we realise that God’s standards are very high indeed,
that we might even say they are greater than we could ever achieve – to be
holy, to be set aside, even to be perfect.
This is our calling, and I don’t think I’ve reached it, perhaps we feel
we have. Behind all this structure is an
acknowledgement that sometimes it doesn’t all go as well as we would hope and
long for, and that sometimes we let each other down.
And along with all of
that comes the promise of grace, of the Spirit of God living within us who says
‘I love you’. The God who calls us to
perfection doesn’t demand that we confine ourselves to rules and regulations,
though we may accept they can be helpful, but does promise to strengthen, to
guide, to inspire, to love and where necessary to remind us that we are
forgiven.
As a community may we
be a place where love reigns, and as we together wrestle with faith, and what
it means to be people of faith in a changing world, may we be open to one
another, graceful and respectful of one another and willing to bear with the
structures – and where necessary challenge them – in order that we can be an
effective and safe church, a place where we can explore the depths of being in
God and know that there are things, even rules and regulations, that seek to
give us the safe space we need.
Amen.
