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Archbishop-designate Michael Jackson, Bishop Trevor Williams and the Revd John McDowell represented the Church of Ireland in Tallinn, Estonia at a Porvoo Communion Consultation on “Responding to Conflict” held on 20-23 February 2011. 

The following is a report on the consultation by Mr McDowell.

For a transcript of the sermon preached by Bishop Trevor Williams, please click here.
For a transcript of the sermon preached by Archbishop-designate Michael Jackson, please click here.

Article by the Revd John McDowell
I should warn squeamish readers that I am about to issue some ritual notes about the procedure to be adopted when visiting countries which are served by Soviet era sewers.

On achieving the bathroom, enter (cautiously) and close the lavatory seat firmly.  Retire.  Allow time for the noisome pestilence to build up to approximately two bar of pressure.  Re-enter boldly and flush with conviction.  Repeat each time you enter the lavatory and on no account lift the seat, except for obvious reasons.

The Consultation was hosted by the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Estonia in temperatures that fell on some nights to -35C, and on one day didn’t get above -25C.  The Old Town resembled a movie set for a Dostoyevsky novel and I half expected to find Anna Karenina expiring glamorously on the tram tracks of the cobbled streets.  Even our hosts and the participants from the Nordic and Baltic Churches found it exceptionally cold, and it made shipwreck of my complexion.

Tallinn is an exceptionally welcoming and astonishingly cheap venue in which to have spent three days in the company of sundry Lutherans and Anglicans at a Porvoo Consultation reflecting on the subject of “Responding to Conflict”.  Gazette readers will not misunderstand my meaning when I say that the Bishop of Clogher and the Bishop of Limerick had much to say about this subject and were among those asked to resource the Consultation.

Fairly late on in the preparations, the organisers pitched a bit of a bit of a googly at the Bishop of Clogher by asking him to address the subject of “Diaconal Ministry and Conflict”, (by which they did not mean awkward curates). However the Bishop guided the subject into the space between square leg and backward silly point with the aplomb of the practised confrere.

The Bishop of Limerick added much practical and pastoral wisdom drawn from his years at the Corrymeela Community and in North Belfast and the Irish contingent made an important contribution to what is a very pressing matter for churches and for societies all over the world.  

And this was not theological aromatherapy. Indeed it was the inevitability of conflict as part of the usual pattern of our existence that prompted a previous Church Leaders’ Conference in Sigtuna, Sweden to suggest that the Churches of the Porvoo Communion address the subject.

Our deliberations were mightily assisted by the presence and words of the recently retired bishop of Colombo, Duleep de Chickera who led Bible studies on each of the three days.  He noted at the outset that theologians have replaced conflict resolution with conflict transformation, thereby recognising conflict as a potential source of blessing in Churches and in societies.   

Although the participants addressed conflict within individuals and civil communities, inevitably the emphasis fell on conflicts within and between Churches. Each of us, within our own denominations and Communions, and within the ecumenical allegiances we have forged, is thrown together with those with whom we passionately disagree.  So conflict is inevitable.  The questions for us to address are around the manner of our responses.  

Do we conduct a loud hailer dialogue of the deaf from our moral mountaintops?  Do we settle for parallel development?  Do we hurl anathemas at one another?  Or do we exercise self-restraint and an element of self suspicion?  Do we, at the very least, resolve not to impugn our opponents’ motives?

Do we, as we are perhaps just beginning to learn in political society in Northern Ireland, stick with “the other”, and see if there isn’t a blessing to be had from them which we have lost and which, in our circumstances can only be enjoyed with the help of our opponents.  In civil society we do this because, in reality, we can’t walk away.  In Churches we have to learn to do so because we shouldn’t walk way.

Another key resource person for the Consultation was Canon Paul Avis, a theologian from the Church of England, who gave us some reflections on Authority, Leadership and Conflict.  He has recently written on conflict and separation in the New Testament Churches who themselves experienced much deeply felt disagreement.  He came to the conclusion that, for them, only denial of the fact of the Incarnation (that Jesus had come in the flesh) was a communion- breaking issue and that we should consider our conflicts in the light of that.

Bishop Duleep, who works in the Global South, and in a country which is ethnically and religiously very mixed, made the point that Jesus often addressed inter-faith issues.  He came from a nation who regarded themselves as specially favoured by God and yet he found and commended greater faith among the heretical, the godless and the enemy.   He did not choose particularly diplomatic language to remind his  brethren of this.

Jesus understanding of God was mediated to him through the Old Testament (the First Testament as Bishop Duleep called it) where God was seen as eternal, omnipresent and dynamic; never resting.  Therefore he could not be contained in any nations  history, nor restricted to any nation’s space but was everywhere active to bless, and people living by kingdom values could be found everywhere.

The unusual mix of peoples and religions in Sri Lanka has led to much thought being devoted to exploring the tensions between the Unique Christ and the Universal Christ and how they might be reconciled.  The gathering in Tallinn was not the place to examine that particular theme but the quiet, courageous, gracious and wise presence of Bishop Duleep, rather like a Buddhist in his composure, provided an irresistibly attractive cameo of Christian life in a truly pluralistic society.

The Churches of Tallinn where we visited or worshipped were almost as varied as the subject under discussion.  The Lutheran Churches often with medieval altarpieces, or the Church of the Holy Spirit where Archbishop Andres Poder presided at a Eucharist in Estonian, for the Porvoo visitors, were austere testimony to the faith of the Estonian people in the age of Hitler and Stalin.  We happened upon the Russian Orthodox Church of St. Alexander Nevski just as the priest was preaching the sermon in which he talked with passion about “the Fatherland”; and he wasn’t referring to Estonia. And the biggest surprise of all-the most entertaining seminar on a religious subject I have ever attended given by an hilarious Baptist psychologist.  And you don’t meet one of them everyday.  

The Irish contingent departed on the Estonian National Day, but we first had time to take in the Military Parade and celebrations in  Victory Square.  We arrived a little early and asked a local girl what would happen at the parade. “Soldiers showing off” she said with a smile; probably because they were her soldiers and not those of neighbouring Russia.

Such is the charisma of the Bishop of Limerick that he caught the eye of a camera crew and was interviewed for Estonian National Television, so universal peace is expected to breakout forthwith.   In any case we clambered on to our extraordinarily good value budget flight for Dublin.  Either the seats had been moved closer together since we flew out or Baltic cold-defeating carbohydrate had done its work: but there wasn’t much room for manoeuvre.



Sermon by the Rt Revd Trevor Williams, Bishop of Limerick and Killaloe
Opening Eucharist
Porvoo Consultation “The Churches response to religious and political conflict
Tallinn, Estonia 21st February 2011
St Matthew 5.38-48

In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Thank you for the invitation to be with you over these next few days.  It is a privilege, and my first time, to be at a meeting of the Porvoo Communion.  The fellowship we enjoy between our churches is one of the successes of ecumenical engagement, where we have been able to recognise not only that we worship the same Lord, but we formally recognise one another’s ministries, are belong to a common family of Christian churches.  We have overcome the natural instinct to love only those who are like us, who belong to our culture, who share our history and identity.  We have put aside the institutional forces which demand structure and order, which promote self-centredness and self-righteousness to reach out and affirm as brothers and sisters those who don’t belong to ‘US’.  This is something to celebrate and continue to affirm as we meet together over these next few days.

We meet to learn from one another and our topic is “The Churches response to politcal and religious conflict” and the Gospel reading for today, the third Sunday before Advent couldn’t be more appropriate.

Jesus said that he didn’t come to abolish the law but to fulfill it.  And in this passage Jesus shows that the Law “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” which was given, not to promote retaliation, but to break the instinctive spiral of violence, finds its fulfillment and ultimate intention in the Law of Love.  

43 ‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.” 44But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,  (....and Jesus continues.....) 45so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.

Jesus demands that his followers love not only the members of their own national or religous group (Lev 19.18) but even their enemies.  This is based not on human nature, but on the example of God.

It is human nature to love those who love you and to greet only members of your own family.  When God’s love and care for all people are taken as the way of freedom which Jesus invites us to follow, we love all people as God does, as Jesus shows us by the example of his life, death and resurrection.  This is eternal life.

We know well that conflict separates. We distance ourselves from the humanity of our enemy, they become the object of our hatred, and we become obessed with how to dominate, defeat and humiliate them.

How different are God’s ways from our ways.  We were his enemies. But he drew close to us, his enemies, and through the self giving of his Son, met our hostility with His unconditional love.

Many Churches are not good at handling conflict. As Christians we often refuse to face conflict when it occurs.  Maybe because we think it unChristian not to love one another, or maybe more truthfully we mask our conflict under a veil of moral superiority, or upholidng the truth.  The result is the same, we distance our enemy from us, and we fail to recognise their God given dignity as being made in the image of God. 

We need to reflect on how Churches handle conflict. Firstly by acknowledging the presence of conflict when it occurs. Secondly by drawing the enemy close, to restore communication, and finally by responding to them in love.

That is our Christian calling.

Corrymeela is an ecumenical Christian community committed to reconciliation in Ireland. It was at a closing worship that I saw an example of loving your enemy.

The pariticpants in a three day residential programme during the height of the trouble, when fear stalked the streets and each act of violence brought retaliation in kind.  After working together, building trust, gaining courage to reach out from their tribal groupings to those from the enemy camp, they sat on the floor for a simple act of worship.  Towards the close, the leader asked that if they wished, any member of the group could mention the name of someone or some situation they were concerned about.  One girl spoke up. She said “I would like you to pray for a person in prison.  He is worried tonight because tomorrow he returns to court to receive the sentence for his crime.  Pray for him.  Pray for his family, his wife and his children, who are also very worried tonight.

On the way out, the Corrymeela worker who led the worship said to the young girl, Do you mind if I ask you who it was you were praying for tonight, the man in prison and his family.  She paused and then replied. He’s the man who murdered my father.

“43 ‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.” 44But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,  (....and Jesus continues.....) 45so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.”

May we be so rooted and grounde in the security of God’s loving embrace, that we may discover the freedom to Love our enemies and be children of our Father in heaven.
AMEN

+Trevor




Sermon preached by the Rt Revd Michael Jackson, Bishop of Clogher
Closing Eucharist
Porvoo Consultation “The Churches response to religious and political conflict
Church of the Holy Spirit, Tallin, Estonia February 22nd 2011
1 Kings 21.4-7; Romans 12.16-21; St Matthew 15.21-28

Before any of us, as St Paul was concerned to remind Roman Christians, is the possibility of being overcome by evil and, in the process, becoming agents of evil. We were reminded of this in the Reading which formed the centre-piece of our worship, at the mid-point of our Consultation: Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.  This is the culmination of a short argument by St Paul which touches on another prickly subject, namely the ease, the fluidity with which we appropriate the righteousness of God as our own self-righteousness. We are encouraged, indeed empowered, by St Paul to set to one side our forensic instinct, to let God be God and to leave to God the pain of judgement. For ourselves we ought to concentrate on being good and doing good, as God made us to be and to do.

Our Consultation has concerned itself with conflict, the recognition of it and the naming of it, the realization that, fraught with anxiety and disappointment as it is, it is part of the weave of life where and when purposeful individuals meet over a decision which has consequences for each and every one. The luxury of individualism has to cede and to take the shape of community. Conflict can also be a catalyst for creativity, not least where there never was creativity before.

The tension between individualism and community is a huge component in contemporary conflict – precisely because so much of our contemporary effort goes into getting things for ourselves. But not all personal effort is selfishness, although undoubtedly some is. Not all individual initiative is intended to create a larger space for oneself in the face of the expectation, and indeed entitlement, of others to have room and to have space. The Old Testament Lesson of Ahab and Jezebel, in relation to the vineyard of Naboth, takes us deep into the theology of conflict at the point where we delude ourselves that we are entitled to what is rightly what belongs to another. In Ireland today we find ourselves deeply embedded in the social repercussions of economic difficulties which derive from the greedy assumption that property expansion is the way of advancing yourself and your security, opening up new opportunities for your family and your children. Our economic collapse stands on the assumption that property and its acquisition need no further justification or explanation. Why not mortgage, indeed re-mortgage, the roof over your head and it will provide you with another roof you can rent out? It makes perfect sense, so why delay? We find ourselves, in 1 Kings 21, pitched into a number of struggles which point up the seduction of the power to expand and to control while at the same time making the assumption that there is no further need to govern and respect. Power just seems to justify itself. Ahab shows weakness in his thirst to deprive Naboth of his ancestral vineyard; he shows further weakness in caving in to the taunts of a member of his family who is willing to stoop to any corruption to control him – Jezebel. His grasp of the things which matter most has lost its shape and its focus.

But let us go to the New Testament, to the disputed territory of Syrophoenicia, the land of Tyre and Sidon, The Canaanite woman hails Jesus as Son of David, she asks him to have pity on her because her daughter is tormented by a devil. Too often our tendency in reading and in hearing the Gospel is to jump to a recognition of what Jesus is heard to say as automatically and necessarily being what Jesus actually said at the time. This is not always the case. Gospel-writers are the first interpreters, the incunabulists of both theological interpretation and community appropriation. If lost sheep of the House of Israel are the priority in salvation on the part of the New Moses, as is a strong thrust of St Matthew’s Gospel, then the stranger quite literally has to make a case for any entitlement to be at the table. But the fact is that the stranger is hungry for God and, in this case, God is forced to listen. The stranger is a catalyst in releasing the energy, the dynamism of God beyond the House of Israel. Faith is not the preserve of ethnicity, faith is in a real and tangible sense God recognizing God in the dynamic of human life, of human nurture and of human otherness.

The incarnation, as Paul Avis reminded us during our Consultation, is the touchstone of continuing community – look at the Epistles of John. The New Testament gives us permission to break communion only with those who deny the incarnation. Incarnation is described in John’s Gospel as pitching the tent. To my mind there is the essential need embedded in this always to keep the life of the Gospel moving and, when we tie John 1 in with John 14, to have an energetic picture of what it is to abide. In my Father’s house are, indeed, many mansions. Yet those mansions must have a relationship with the tent which is pitched on earth in the all-defining incarnation. They are not different houses.

There is no glass ceiling in the being of God between yesterday and tomorrow, even though there so often is in the political mind-games which we play as churches. The many mansions are already to be found in the tent of incarnation, pitched on earth, yet ready always to move forward from context to context, community to community, culture to culture. Addressing conflict, seeking reconciliation are part of the weave of incarnation and to this work we continue to be called and driven.

The tent of incarnation – God can pitch that tent in the land of the enemy. This, assuredly, is the unblinking clarity that is required for us as we, Porvoo Churches, express our commitment to God through commitment to one another: commitment to being a communion and to be in communion. May God grant us faith, hope and love; commitment, loyalty and grace.

St Matthew 15.27: True sir, she answered, and yet the dogs eat the scraps that fall from their master’s table.         

+Michael

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