Diocesan News
Archbishop Michael Jackson addresses Dublin & Glendalough Diocesan Synods
‘Working from home, believing from home – through the eyes of Jesus the carpenter’s son’
Dublin and Glendalough Diocesan Synods took place online from Taney Parish Centre, Dublin, on Wednesday 6 October 2021. The business of Synods began after a celebration of Holy Communion in Taney Parish Church celebrated by the Archbishop of Dublin.
Working from home and believing from home over the last 18 months have resulted in many people becoming self–sufficient in ways they never anticipated, the Archbishop of Dublin, the Most Revd Dr Michael Jackson, said in his Presidential address to Dublin and Glendalough Diocesan Synods. The 2021 Diocesan Synods took place in people’s homes as, for the second year running, the gathering was held online.
The theme of the Archbishop’s address, ‘Working from home, believing from home – through the eyes of Jesus the carpenter’s son’, drew on St Matthew 13: 55 ‘…Is he not the carpenter’s son? Archbishop Jackson observed that the time Jesus spent as a carpenter’s apprentice was a time about which we have no great insight or knowledge in Scripture. St Luke 2:51 says ‘Then Jesus went back with them to Nazareth, and continued to be under their authority’. And then ‘As Jesus grew he advanced in wisdom and in favour with God and men’.
“It is precisely this unique combination of human and divine that the lockdowns have offered on our doorstep to us as members of these United Dioceses,” he said. “And my hope and prayer are that you yourselves have used the lockdown time to advance in favour with God and men as did Jesus Christ when he was working from home in Nazareth.”
While working from home was not a new phenomenon, he said, working and schooling from home was a sharp uphill lesson in multi–tasking. The role of churches added the equally important component of believing from home.
“Believing from home is not in any way a second best to working from home. It is, rather, its foundation […] Our home became the place where our values were fashioned, formed and tested. Our home became the place where immediacy of response, and the joy and delight that brings, became the order of the day. Our home became the place where Scripture and the trivial round and common task met and talked. The circumstances were from time to time tense and intense but it was, as many indeed found, a journey worth taking, a camino on our doorstep, in our kitchen. For many of us, this opportunity will not return. You will be glad that you have seized it in a Godly manner,” he said.
The Archbishop pointed out that from home we had the opportunity to grapple with individual responsibility and contribute to the common good as well as to face our limitations and discover neighbourliness. He suggested there would be a tremendous positive spiritual benefit from learning to pray and worship at home.
He paid tribute to all who had helped to keep the dioceses buoyant and solvent, vibrant and happy throughout the past 18 months. He thanked clergy for all they had done and continued to do.
Looking to the future, the Archbishop said that nobody knew what it held. He said it seemed clear that there would be more variants and more vigilance. Some people who withdrew from mixing with others may never really return to the level of social circulation they took for granted. This, he said, was an extreme sadness.
“While it is easy to see this and to want to help in the lives of those who are family members, it is equally important not to forget those who are neighbours, whether they live alone or with others. The danger for everyone is that for those who have all life’s benefits at their fingertips, they think that everything is the same as ever it was. Despite appearances, this could not be further from the reality. The amount of trauma, of alienation, of on–line tension, of domestic violence and of sheer hopelessness in the face of debt and unemployment, of poverty and homelessness and indeed of personal worthlessness as our society prepares for yet another technological revolution together with blended working and blended economy, is raw and bewildering for so many,” he stated.
He continued: “As followers of the carpenter’s son who will have learned the relationship between raw materials and precision of workmanship leading to a satisfying finished product at home, we need to hear the cries for justice of the many worldwide buried beneath the rubble of the self–interest of a few. Vaccine–justice is a pulsating issue in our global village. We need also to tune our ears and open our eyes to the voices of hope that are outside and inside us. Many of us have grown tired of superficiality and pretension in the Lockdowns and many of us have grown self–sufficient in ways we never anticipated. The future offers us the opportunity to invest all of this in the service of the common good, the well–being of others beyond ourselves and beyond our church, as is the constant calling of every Anglican”.
He said the carpenter’s son, who was willing to live and work in an earthly home, was an exemplar to us as we clamber out of a global pandemic, as we seek to leave nobody behind in social bereavement and social callousness and as we move up through the gears of self–sufficiency.
Archbishop Jackson thanked all who had made Synod 2021 possible, in particular Heatley Tector and his team. He assured all who were joining from home that a lot of work had gone into making Synod possible.
You can read Archbishop Jackson’s Presidential Address at this link.
For further information please contact:
Diocesan Communications Officer, Dublin & Glendalough
087 235 6472
Mrs Lynn Glanville
dcodublin@gmail.com